


Into the Jungle

by The Manwell (Manniness)



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: 19th Century, Adventure, Africa, Alternate Universe - 19th Century, Alternate Universe - Jungle, First Love, Love at First Sight, M/M, a.k.a. Jungle Book Trowa, a.k.a. Tarzan Trowa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-07-29 02:50:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 38,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7667404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manniness/pseuds/The%20Manwell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When London orphan Duo Maxwell puts off seminary school to accompany his mentor, elderly Father Maxwell, on a botanical survey of an exotic African jungle, he hopes for the adventure of a lifetime.  What he finds is both much more precious and far more dangerous than he could have ever dreamed.</p><p>Duo POV</p><p>Warnings: Rated M for sexual content, gore, violence, language, reference to underage NCS (non-graphic) and reference to torture (non-graphic)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Super special thanks goes out to Amberly, Clara Barton, and Annoying Little Twit for being the best fandom friends in the history of EVER.
> 
> Manny’s Notes:  
> This story could take place sometime in the mid-to-late 19th century. No historical research was done to support a specific time period. Mostly because I didn’t want to crimp Duo’s style by altering his character’s voice too much to fit with that aforementioned (and avoided) specific time period.
> 
> And:  
> Though this story mentions the port city of Lagos, it does not address the fact that, as a (or THE) major crossing into Africa, it was the central hub of the slave trade. Other dark themes will be explored in this story, but not the topic of slavery.
> 
> Written for the Gundam Wing Rare Pair Big Bang (August 2016) on Tumblr.

The jungle.

It was unlike anything I’d ever seen.  Not like any of the sketchy photos I’d seen in the papers in London.  Not like any of the paintings I’d glimpsed in Paris.  Not even like the illustrations in Father Maxwell’s personal library back home in our sleepy, little French village.

I gaped in wonder at the endless greenery.  My ears felt full to bursting with the sounds of strange birdcalls in the distance.  Blossoms and shadows and the smell of it all – nothing in the world had ever smelled so clean and wonderful and good.

“God Almighty,” I cursed.

“Duo.  Language, lad,” Father Maxwell absently admonished me, but I was too enchanted to bother manufacturing a chastised expression.  Father Maxwell and Sister Hélène had managed to convince me that cleanliness was close to godliness – had instilled a genuine appreciation for bathing in me.  They’d taught me to read and write, to draw and even have a little faith.  They’d shown me that I didn’t have to steal or brawl or hide in nooks and crannies from every strange man who entered the small church.  But neither of them had cured me of foul language.  Yet.

“This is amazing!” I crowed, turning in a complete circle to appreciate the full view.  Well, not the abandoned outpost that we were taking over.  I could take or leave the sad, huddled group of tatty, rotting shanties.  But _this!_   This was something.

I jogged to the edge of the lush growth and braced myself between a pair of trees that I didn’t know the names of yet.  But that was why we’d crossed two continents to get here.  Father Maxwell had finally found a replacement to tend the chapel with Sister Hélène and now he was free to indulge in his other love: botany.  The persistent tremor in his hands was why I’d come with him.  Me, Duo Maxwell, the good father’s trusted scribe and illustrator of all discoveries leafy.

Who would have thought that a gutter rat and pickpocket from London could have come so far and laid eyes on such a wonder as this jungle?

I dug the toes of my boots into the soft earth and leaned toward the cool, humid shade just beyond my reach.  Inhaling deeply, I felt my smile stretch.  The wind puffed and pushed at my braid.  The sun baked the black fabric of my seminary uniform.  I’d been due to start my training to enter the priesthood, but how could I abandon the old man to this adventure?  Seminary school would still be there next year.

Giving in to temptation, I took a step into the wilderness.

“Duo, come help me unpack the camera.”

I rolled my eyes.  We both knew Father Maxwell didn’t let anyone touch his photography equipment.  Not even me.  He just didn’t want me to wander off and get eaten by a lion or something.

“Twenty minutes, please!” I begged.  “Fifteen.  Ten!  Ten minutes to stretch my legs!”  And let my balls find their way back to where they were supposed to be.  A week of nonstop travel astride plodding mules had been pure torture.  I needed freedom and I needed it _now._

I heard him sigh in resignation and I dashed into the undergrowth before he could mutter a new directive like “Be careful” or “Don’t get lost.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” I breathed.  The sunlight spilled through the thick canopy, splashing across leaves, fallen logs, and flowers in golden puddles.  I spotted a bright green frog perched on the side of a wrinkled tree trunk and I moved closer.  It was nothing like the fat, warty things Solo had taught me to catch in the London park marshes.

A movement a little further off caught my eye and I scrambled to get a better look at the blue butterfly that fluttered from one cascade of sunlight to another.  Overhead, a bird screeched and I swung into a patch of shade so I could look up.  It was long-tailed, vibrantly red and if I were a beast, that’s what I’d want to be.  I admired its plumage and envied its wings until something flashed out of the corner of my eye and I saw a yellow and green spider pluck at its web, tending house.

“Unbelievable,” I said to no one on a laugh.  “God damned unbelievable.”

In the distance, I heard a call and then a chittering.  Monkeys, maybe.  I wondered if they looked at all like the ones that performed to music on street corners.  Probably not.  I could not wait to see them for myself.  I found what looked like some kind of trail through the brush and started off in the direction of the troupe.

_Crack!_

_Rustle…_

I paused, glancing around.  The sound had come from close by.  Very close.  But it had been too brief for me to track it to its source.  One thing I was sure of: whatever had made it sounded big and heavy.  As heavy as me.

My hand gripped the hunting knife at my side.  Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to take a jungle tour by myself.  “Right, that’s enough exploring for today,” I muttered.  The sound of my voice didn’t calm my racing pulse.  I backed away from the trail and moved warily across the magical clearing that I’d discovered.  I lunged through the tree line and was startled to find myself a good ten yards away from where I’d started.

“Your ten minutes have expired, lad,” Father Maxwell said.

I smiled and brushed myself off.  Hell, I knew when giving in gracefully was the smartest course of action.  “Right you are.  I’ll go unload Farter.”

Father Maxwell tsked me.  “The pack mule’s name is Romefeller.”

I snorted, remembering the animal’s very audible bowel distress.  Nonstop.  Since Lagos.  “He may roam, but that monster’s nobody’s _fella_ an’ you know it!”

The father didn’t argue with me as I got to work on unbuckling our packs from the animal’s harness.  As I hefted, lifted, hauled, and shoved, the skin between my shoulders tightened and started to itch.  I was being watched.

I kept working, but kept an eye on the dense jungle ringing the abandoned settlement.  The mules were happy to be standing still with fresh water and grain laid out.  Their tails twitched in response to the welcoming committee of tiny insects.  It appeared that I was the only one who sensed something out there.  Maybe I was imagining it, but I didn’t think so.

Father Maxwell and I had one of the huts habitable by dusk.  After sweeping out the forest deadfall and shooing away the current inhabitants – a couple of bats and some interesting-looking insects – we set up our cots and hung netting around our beds.  I knew how important this was; the previous inhabitants of this remote outpost had all died of fever something like ten years ago.

“Close the shutters, won’t you, lad?” Father Maxwell asked as he took one of our three oil lamps to the bedroom area to study as was his custom before bed.

“We’ll get a desk set up for ya tomorrow,” I promised as he sat down on his cot with an expressive exhalation of exhaustion.  I moved through the tiny hut, latching the door and lowering the shutters on each of the three windows.

“This one has a broken latch,” I pointed out.

“Too late to repair it tonight,” he answered.

I added it to the list of things to do tomorrow.

I woke to a scent that was so sweet and fresh that my brain just didn’t know what to do with it.

“Duo?”

Frowning, I carefully sat up on my canvas cot and just about put my foot in some kind of brown-skinned melon.  I gaped at the assortment of fresh-cut blossoms and ripe fruit that had been spread out on the floor.  “What the hell?”

For once, Father Maxwell didn’t call me on my profanity.  “Did you close all the shutters last night?” he asked.

“Er, yeah.  ‘Cept for the one that’s broken.”

“Hm.  I was expecting monkeys to try to steal our food… not to deliver us more of it.”

“Bizarre,” I agreed, eyeing the colorful arrangement that seemed to be encircling my cot.  “D’you think we can eat some of this stuff?”

“Not before I catalog it, young man.”

My stomach growled and I sighed.  As Father Maxwell began rummaging in his supplies for paper and charcoal, I picked up my boots, shook them out, and then shoved my feet into them before I went to prop open the shutters and door.  It was well past dawn outside.  Another beautiful, fresh day.  The sky was blue and the jungle was green.  I jogged over to the hut that we’d decided to use as a stable for the mules.  They seemed to think they were on the verge of starvation, but other than that, they were fine.  Whatever had found its way into the hut had had no interest in the livestock.

My cot had been the only thing to be, er, decorated in the night.  By what?  What could have entered through the closed but unlatched shutter?  And why would it leave food and flowers behind instead of taking our supplies?

As I stood there in the open scanning the jungle, wondering at its secrets, I felt the telltale itching between my shoulders.  Something _was_ out there, watching.  What the hell could it be and what could it possibly want?

Clearly, it hadn’t wanted to kill us in our sleep.  So.  There was that.

I realized I was uselessly clutching my hunting knife.  Letting go of both it and the reflex to defend myself, I ran my hands through my bangs – they desperately wanted cutting – and released a long breath.

Well, either we’d encounter the thing or it’d disappear.  Only time would tell.

I spent the day sweating in the sunshine.

“Duo, put your shirt on.”

“It’s too hot,” I whined.

“You’ll burn.”  Father Maxwell thrust my flax undershirt at me and, with a resigned sigh, I slipped it on.

I finished repairing the thatched roof by mid-afternoon and spent the rest of the dwindling daylight hammering a makeshift study desk out of the photography equipment crates.  Father Maxwell and I carefully tasted and ate our way through the fruit that had been left behind.  After dark, with the door latched and shutters closed, he dictated copious notes on each and every one of the flowers, from the tip of the stamen to the ragged end of the stem, including its colors and scent.  I scribbled and sketched until I was sure my fingers were about to snap off at the joints.

When Father Maxwell finally declared it time to sleep, I picked up one of the flowers.  Some kind of lily.  I listened to the father’s evening ablutions and turned the blossom upside down to study the end of the stem.  It hadn’t been harvested with scissors.  Either the knife used had been duller than a catechism or these flowers had been bitten right off of the plant.

With a shrug, I pressed them between the pages of the blank journals we’d brought with us.

After the long day of physical labor, sleep fell on me like a downpour.

Wakefulness arrived with a delicious aroma that had my eyes snapping open.  I sat up so fast I nearly toppled my cot to the dirt floor.  Once again, I’d been enshrined with flowers and fruit.  Easily twice as much as before.

“Holy shit!” I choked.

In the neighboring cot, Father Maxwell stirred.  “Language, Duo,” he sleepily reprimanded me.

“Yeah, yeah,” I agreed, “but _look!”_

With a sigh, he rolled over, rubbed his eyes, and stared at the _field_ of color that nearly stretched all the way from my bed to his.

“Did you repair the shutter yesterday?” he checked.

“No,” I admitted.  That and no more.  I didn’t want to lie to him and the truth was that it hadn’t slipped my mind.  I’d been curious to see if our visitor might come back for a second night in a row.  It sure looked as if that was what had happened.

“Tend to it today,” he ordered.

I bit my lip.  “Um… hey, look!  I’ve never seen a flower like that before!”

Father Maxwell followed my pointed finger and stared at the blossom.  In fact, there were easily half a dozen new specimens for us to record in his field journals.

“Maybe we should wait one more day to fix the latch?” I suggested.

He nodded slowly.  “It would be nice to meet our generous neighbor,” he allowed.

I grinned.  “In that case, I’d better see to the mules.”  I had a lot to get done this morning if I was going to have time to take a nap this afternoon.

That night, after another dinner of fruit, after pressing the flowers, after washing up and locking up, I lay awake in the darkness trying not to fidget.  I was fully dressed and my boots were laced on my feet, ready for action.  The oil lamp had been turned down so that only the faintest line of blue flame huddled on the braided wick.  Father Maxwell’s snores filled the hut and I recited Hail Marys and All Fathers to stave off sleep.  I had no idea how long I’d been lying here, staring into the darkness, moving my lips in silence, and occasionally giving myself a sharp pinch on the elbow, before something happened.  The unlatched shutter swung open and silvery moonlight painted the floor.  A shadow moved and the moonlight became little more than an outline as our visitor climbed inside.

I gripped the edge of my cot and forced myself to take slow, even breaths.

I strained to hear anything of the intruder’s approach, but I couldn’t even make out a footstep.  The mosquito netting rippled.  I forgot to breathe.  And then a shadow was looming at my feet.  I heard a sound that made my heart slam into my throat: a soft rolling growl and sigh.

“Trrrrrruh… ahhhh.”

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what the hell kind of thing made a noise like _that?_

My desire to meet our guest face to face evaporated like water on a hot frying pan and I regretted having only my mediocre hunting knife in my hand.

And then the whatever-it-was stooped and there was a sound like skin sliding against skin.  In perfect silence, the trespasser slowly moved from the foot of my cot to the far side, crouching low.  The scent of flowers and fruit reached me.

I thought about the lamp and began inching my left arm up to the dial that would breathe life into the tiny flame.  I forced myself to take steady breaths as I waited for the figure – pitch-black against the faint glow of moonlight – to reach my elbow and then I struck.

I twisted the lamp wick higher and thrust my knife out.  What I saw stayed my hand.

It was a boy.  A man.  With brown skin and wild hair and he was only my age or a little older.

“Shit!” I shouted and he startled.  I groped for his arm with my free hand, but he was fast.  Twisting and sprinting for the window.  My cot toppled over as I lunged after him, nearly tearing the netting in my haste as I raced for the door.

“Duo!”  Father Maxwell’s shout reached me just as I leaped over the threshold, but I wasn’t about to stop now.  I could catch our intruder before he reached the jungle if I just—

I’d never run so fast in my life.

I was so close.  Just a little more than an arm’s length behind him.

He dived into the darkness of the jungle and I didn’t even hesitate to follow him.

Branches scratched and leaves slapped me in the face.  Roots and small foliage tangled around my ankles.  I struggled to my feet more than once, following the faint sound of his footsteps.

“Stop!” I shouted.  “Stop!”

And then I pounded to a halt, panting and disoriented.  I was surrounded by darkness.

In the distance, I could hear Father Maxwell calling for me, but his voice echoed, bouncing at me from too many different directions.  Without that tether to guide me, what were my chances of making it back to the settlement?  I supposed I could try.  I could also get lost, get injured, and get eaten.

“Fuck.”

I sighed.

And then I froze.  A heavy footstep sounded in the distance.  A hungry feline growl rolled along the ground right to me.  I still had my knife, but what good would it do if I couldn’t see what I needed to fight?

Sister Hélène was gonna be so mad that I died from too much stupid.

The cat – the very big cat – was prowling closer.  It was circling me.  I was pretty sure I could track it and I followed its progress with my hunting knife at the ready.  It’d been a long time since I’d been in a knife fight, but I was never gonna forget the lessons my younger, weaker self had learned out of sheer panic and terror.

 _You can do this,_ I told myself.

If it was a lie, then it sure as hell wouldn’t matter much to me afterward.

Suddenly, a warm body pressed against my back.  An arm wrapped around my chest and I felt the flat of a hand hover softly against my mouth.  Warm breath kissed the shell of my ear and strands of hair brushed my temple.

The wild man.

A hush fell over the jungle.

My heartbeats pounded in my ears.

The chest pressed against my back moved steadily, reminding me to breathe.  I clutched the knife in my hand.

A scream tore through the night and I flinched.  The sound of two heavy bodies colliding in the brush not ten feet away had me scrambling back, fighting to be free of the arms wrapped around me.

More screams.  Cats.  Big cats.  Leopards or something _huge_ were brawling in the darkness.

The wild man grabbed my arm and pulled me away.  I didn’t fight him.  Hell, I knew he was my best bet for survival.  He leaped over some obstacle in the path and I was too focused on the tearing-shrieking-crashing going on behind us to react.  I stumbled, ploughed into the soft, damp jungle floor.

My knife flipped out of my grasp and tumbled into the darkness.

“Shit!” I hissed, groping for it blindly.

Hands found mine instead.  Strong hands that pulled me up and refused to let me go.

We ran.  We ran, leaped, dodged, and finally stopped at the base of a massive tree.  Everything still looked like varying shades of pitch black here beneath the thick jungle canopy.  His hands smoothed along my arms, guiding me to what turned out to be a branch.  He wanted me to climb.  Given the dangers that lurked in the underbrush, I wanted me to climb, too.

I pulled myself up onto the bough and felt around for another stable perch.  Out of the darkness, his hand found mine and placed it upon my next handhold.  That was how I got my ass up the tree.  Blind as a damned bat, waving my hand in the darkness, reaching out into nothing and hoping like hell he would be there to show me a safe route.

My shoulders, wrists, ankles, and hips were on fire by the time he tugged my hand over to something that didn’t feel like a branch.  It felt like some kind of basket.  Or a nest.  Holy Virgin Mary.  He’d brought me to his home.  Or to the home of a large carnivorous bird that he owed a tasty treat.

I shuddered.

“Trrrrrruh,” he said from beside me.

If I’d been able to see the edge of the nest in the darkness, I would have taken up a defensive position.  Though he hadn’t done anything to hurt me – had done the exact opposite – my body was remembering a lifetime of running, hiding, fighting, and escaping.

“Trrrrrruh,” he repeated, softer, gentler this time.  “Trrrrrruh ahhhh.”

I shut my eyes and pulled my knees against my chest, folded my arms around my shins and tried to breathe without screaming.  I had never been so terrified in my life.

I focused on each inhale and exhale, listened to the sounds of the jungle, managed my existence one moment at a time.

“Trrrrrruh.”  When I felt a touch on my shoulder, I didn’t flinch.  He moved closer and I felt his arm come around me.  He nudged me down into what was a soft and fragrant bedding of grass and herbs.  I lay on my side with his warm, solid body pressed against my back and his arm curved around me.  I remembered the kids I’d once run the streets of London with, remembered how we’d pile together on cold nights for warmth, remembered that nothing bad had ever happened to me at those times.


	2. Chapter 2

I must have fallen asleep because when I opened my eyes, it was light and my intruder-turned-rescuer was watching me intently from an arm’s length away.  He held out a fruit – one of the types that I’d eaten the previous day – but I needed to scout my environment first.  I measured the nest with a glance – about six feet across with raised edges.  I looked up into the branches of the massive tree, and then I leaned over the nearest edge and looked down.

“Holy fuck,” I breathed, my fingers curling until a twig caught in my grasp snapped.  Saying we were up high would be a serious understatement.  In all the years I’d scampered through the streets and woven my way between the chimney stacks of London – in the years before I’d been caught and chucked into that shithole of an orphanage – I had never been up this high.

But, high or not, I still had a full bladder to take care of.

My watcher kept his gaze on me as I shuffled toward the trunk of the tree, turned my back, and undid my trouser fastenings.  I glanced over my shoulder at him before grabbing a nearby branch for support and leaning over the edge of his nest to answer the call of nature.

Reassembling my tattered, smelly clothing, I sat back down and looked from him to the fruit in his hand.  Once more, he offered it to me.  Our skin brushed as I took it and he sucked in a sharp breath.  My fingers tightened on the fruit, bruising the meat of it, but I didn’t start eating until he’d relaxed.

As I ate, I studied him.  He was taller than me.  Well-muscled in the chest and shoulders.  Strong.

And also nearly naked.  He wore something like a loincloth made from some type of brown short-hair fur – deerskin perhaps – wrapped around his hips.  His legs were long and his feet callused but surprisingly narrow.  I studied his hands – slender – and his fingers – narrow-tipped.  And then I looked at his face, from his straight nose to his auburn beard.  His red-brown hair was a tangle of wind-blown strands and it fell over his smooth brow, concealing one of his eyes.  The other eye was a vivid, brilliant, startling green.

Green eyes.

Europeans had green eyes.

Holy Trinity, this man wasn’t a native.

I gaped at his brown skin.  If I’d lived out-of-doors for years, my skin might be that dark.  My hair might be that ragged.  If I’d lived on my own in the wilderness for ten years, I might look exactly like him.

“Were you one of the settlers?  From the outpost?” I blurted.

He tilted his head and looked at me.  He didn’t understand a word I’d just said.  I sighed.

Right, let’s start with the basics, then.

I summoned my earliest reading and writing lessons.  As I tossed the fruit core over the edge of the nest, he watched its arcing path, then he looked at me and I looked at him.  I pressed a hand to my chest and said, “Duo.”

He didn’t say anything, so I repeated it.  And repeated it again.

I gestured to myself – “Duo” – and then I reached out a hand toward his chest and waited.

A smile pulled his lips wide and I was surprised to see strong, good, clean teeth filling his delighted grin.  He pushed himself to his feet and stood.  He rolled his head, flexed his chest muscles, bent his arms, and tensed his thighs.  I stared at the evidence of his sinewy strength with what I was sure were wide eyes.  He turned, repeating the process along his back.  There were scars.  Several of them.  Very old.  From what looked like a whipping.  But otherwise his skin was smooth.

He faced me again and waited.  Perhaps because he thought it was my turn.  I didn’t move.  There was no way I was gonna strip for this fellow and just show off my goods.

He didn’t seem to get whatever response he’d been hoping for.  Still watching me, he reached for his loincloth and, with a quick twitch of his fingers, the animal skin fell in a heap at his feet.

Sweet Jesus.

He smiled again and I forgot to breathe.

He stood there, completely naked and unashamed.

He stood _there_ and I sat _here_ and just tried to deny what was happening.

Whatever that was.

Which I didn’t wanna know.

When I didn’t react, he knelt down on his knees.  Then he lowered his gaze and _crawled_ toward me until his forehead butted against my knee.  The veritable picture of submission.  I leaned back, lifting my hands away and wondering what the hell I was supposed to do, when he rolled over, laying his head in my lap and looking up at me pleadingly.

Like a big, brown-skinned, persistent puppy.

Did he want me to rub his belly?

Well, no.  Given the state of his burgeoning arousal, I was pretty sure he didn’t want a _belly_ rub.  My fingers curled and my hands fisted.  I shook my head and shoved at his shoulders until my back connected with the tree trunk.  Jesus.  No.  This was—this was unbelievable. 

“Stop,” I grated, panting as he sat up and regarded me.  “This—you’ve made a mistake.  I’m not a girl.”

Again, he tilted his head to the side in silent question.

“Joseph fuck the Pope,” I muttered.  There was probably only one way to clear this up and I wasn’t sure how he’d react.  I’d dealt with men even less educated and articulate than this fellow and the outcome had never been pretty.  Once this green-eyed wild man figured out that he’d brought another male into his territory, would he toss my ass out of the tree?  I’d probably break my back on any one of the dozens of branches between here and the ground where I’d undoubtedly snap my neck for good measure.

I weighed my options and decided it was worth the risk.  He hadn’t tried to hurt me.  Not once.  He’d helped me and guided me to safety.  I summoned up as much faith in the inherent goodness of human beings as I could.

Taking a fortifying breath, I shifted onto my knees and this seemed to encourage him, but I held up a hand.  “Stop,” I said, and he subsided, waiting and watching.

Taking yet another deep breath, I tore at my trouser fastenings and exposed myself.  He looked down… and kept right on looking.  In fact, he was still looking when he started crawling forward again.  Before he could nuzzle my crotch, I put a hand on his shoulder.  “Stop,” told him again and again he halted, looking up at me in question.

I shook my head.  I pointed to myself, “Man.”  I pointed to him, “Man.”  I shook my head again.  “No way, no how, fella.  No.”

His eyes narrowed and, I’ll be honest, being on the receiving end of that inscrutable expression was not the most pleasant sensation. 

Suddenly, he swiveled around on his knees, presenting his posterior and stretching back to give me a very clear view of a place that doesn’t normally see much sunshine.  He looked at me over his shoulder and waited.

I closed my eyes.  Jesus H. Christ.

And then something shook the tree.  My eyes popped open and I may have squeaked with terror as a huge jungle cat glared at me from an overhead branch.  Its golden eyes watched me with primal hostility and its long tail twitched back and forth slowly as if the animal was trying to decide whether or not to skin me before eating me.

The jungle man stood and placed himself between me and the cat, but his posture wasn’t that of a fighter.  This was a master addressing a pet that had just returned home.  He purred and held out a hand.  The cat glared a second longer for good measure, but then stretched out its great head to let the wild man rub behind its ears.

“Holy shit, you’re friends,” I blurted, quickly refastening my trousers.

The wild man looked at me, his gaze flicking down to my crotch and back up to my face.  Eager to avoid another of his attempts to appreciate my private parts, I gestured between him and the cat.  “Friends,” I said.

“Frrrrrunsss,” he repeated slowly and I was surprised by the soft baritone of his voice.

“Friends.”  I carefully stood and reached for his hand to demonstrate a firm handshake.  “Friends.”  Then I resumed the polite distance between us.  “Friends.”

“Frrrenz.”

Close enough.  I nodded.  “Yes.”

He moved closer – too close – and reached out to run his rough fingertips along the line of my neck.  I shivered.

“Frrrenz,” he repeated.

“No,” I nearly barked and his hand dropped.  “That’s not friendly.  That—that’s what lovers do.”

He waited for me to explain.

“Lovers,” I repeated, my heart pounding.

He lifted his hand and caressed my neck again.  “Luherz.”

I said the word again, clearly demonstrating how to move his lips and teeth.  “Lov-ers.”

“Luverz.”

“Yeah.”  My voice was almost non-existent.

He reached for my hand and placed it on his neck and I watched, my throat dry and tongue swollen, as he guided my fingertips over his hot skin, down the center of his chest to his waist, clearly intending for the lesson to head lower.  “Luverz.”

It looked like he’d gotten the gist of it, so I pulled my hand back before I had a personal introduction with his, er, _man_ -of-the-neighbor- _hood._

I placed my hands on his shoulders and pushed him back a step.  “Friends,” I told him firmly.

He glanced from me to the cat that was still thinking about adding me to the breakfast menu, and then he said something amazing: “Duo.  Su-top.”

I blinked at his appealing expression.

My God.  Was he telling me to stop saying that we could be friends but not lovers?

My heart skipped a beat.

With an effort, I focused on the fact that he’d said my name.  Did he really understand what I’d been trying to tell him?  I pressed a palm to my chest.  “Duo,” I said.

He nodded.  “Yas.  Duo.”

I hesitated for a moment before placing my palm on his chest and watching him back, waiting for him to tell me what he called himself.

“No,” he murmured and shook his head, looking lost and disappointed.  I kinda ached for the fellow.  He wanted me to be his lover, had posed and postured and pleaded.  He’d given me gifts of flowers and fruit in what I now realized must have been some kind of courtship, but I hadn’t been impressed or flattered.  All I really wanted him to give me was his name and he didn’t have one.

Well, there was an easy fix to that.  I recalled that rumble-and-sigh thing he’d done last night and was inspired to call him—

“Trowa,” I said, pressing my palm to his chest.

He pressed his palm to the black fabric covering my chest.  “Duo.”

I took my hand away and pointed to myself.  “Duo.”  Then I pointed to him.

“Trowa,” he said.

“Yes,” I affirmed.

“Duo.”  He collected my hand gently.  “Trowa.”  He placed my hand against his skin.  “Luverz.”

Oh, God.  Was there any way out of this situation without resorting to that?  It wasn’t that the man wasn’t attractive.  He was beautiful.  He smelled like something free and earthy.  He was one of a kind.  I knew this because I’d encountered my share of old and wrinkled, flabby, fat, and smelly men in my life.

The orphanage in London hadn’t had any tolerance for rule-breakers and the punishments only fueled my rage and determination to fight them.  Before the first month was out, I’d found myself stuffed in a mail sack and tossed onto a boat bound for Paris.  I flinched at the memory of the brothel’s sweetly-perfumed rooms and the underlying stench of stale sex and wine.  After the first week, I’d lost count of the number of men I’d been forced to service. Or maybe I’d just been too drunk to keep track.  I’d fought the Madame with every ounce of strength I’d had and she’d ordered wine poured down my throat until I’d become more agreeable.  Too disoriented to resist.  The only reason I wasn’t still stuck in that pit – the only reason my virginity hadn’t been put up for auction – was thanks to one of the older girls.  Hilde.  She’d helped me escape the day before I was to be bought and buggered and I’d run as far away and as fast as I could.

Right into a sleepy French town on the outskirts of Paris where an elderly priest and a kind nun had taken in the wild, distrustful, starving, _feral_ boy who’d broken in to steal the stale bread meant for the Sunday sacrament.

My eyes opened when I felt Trowa lean in and lightly scrape his teeth along my neck.  I gasped.  Heat pooled in my belly and I knew what would come next but I just couldn’t—I couldn’t.

“Trowa, stop,” I said.

Amazingly, he did.  To reward him, I impulsively leaned forward and placed a chaste kiss upon his lips.  His beard tickled my face and my skin tingled.

The kiss surprised him, pleased him, and he smiled.  Before he could reciprocate, I pointed over his shoulder to the cat.  “Friend?” I asked.

He turned and nodded.  “Frrrend.”

“Cat,” I taught him.

“Cat.  Frrrend.”

I placed a hand on his jaw and gave him another quick kiss on his smooth lips.  His green eyes were luminous.  Jesus, he was beautiful.  And still naked.

I stooped down and collected his loincloth.  Holding it out to him, I requested, “Please, Trowa.”

He slowly took the garment from my grasp and retied it around his hips at my urging gesture.  When he was clothed again, I shifted toward him and he anticipated the movement, turning his face to meet my soft kiss. 

Christ, he was a quick study.

I studied the cat.  Was it possible that this beast was the one I’d heard last night fighting in the darkness?  Trowa had a pet jungle cat that had taken on one of its own kind to give us a chance to escape?

I had to admit I was kind of impressed.

“Is your cat hurt?” I asked.  I didn’t expect him to understand me, but I couldn’t keep talking to him in broken sentences indefinitely.  He was clearly a very intelligent man.  I owed him the chance to learn the language correctly.

He waited for me to explain.

“Um… Your cat.  Is it all right?”  I mimed claws scratching through the air.

Trowa shifted to place himself squarely between me and the creature.  While I appreciated his intent to keep me from ending up as kitty chow, that wasn’t what I’d meant.  So, Plan B.  I cradled his face and rubbed behind his ears like he’d done to the cat.  Then I made a show of checking his neck and arms and hands for injuries.  Finally, I gave him a little shove in the direction of our silent guest.

“You’re friends,” I told him.  “Help your cat.”

His confusion vanished and that damned smile reappeared.  Trowa swooped in and placed a quick kiss on my lips before stepping out of the nest and onto the branches as if he were walking from one room into another.  I watched him signal for the cat to turn around, to expose its belly and neck as he ran his hands through the animal’s soft fur.

I gaped and my lips tingled and I started to regret my decision to use kisses as a reward.  I was awed by the fact that, somehow, Trowa might have already learned that our kisses meant more than “well done.”  They also meant “thank you.”

I sat back down as the two of them performed a kind of dance upon the shuddering tree limbs.  Trowa never lost his balance, never made a misstep, never seemed to even glance down.  His easy confidence and grace took my breath away.

How had he survived alone out here for so long?

And how long would I last?

That last thought brought to mind the mosquito netting that I hadn’t used last night.  Trowa had been the only barrier between me and the fever that had killed the previous inhabitants of the outpost.  But I wasn’t covered in bites.  Not even close.  I leaned back and into a slightly hollow portion of the tree trunk as I considered this.  Was I too high up?  Or was it something else?

Father Maxwell had given me more than one lecture on scientific thinking, so I should be able to figure this out.  I investigated the nest a bit more thoroughly and was surprised to see herbs and grasses in various stages of freshness.  Clearly, Trowa regularly replenished his scented bedding.  Could this possibly provide some protection from insect bites?

I really wished I could ask him.

I leaned my head back against the tree and watched Trowa and his cat play-fight among the branches, leaping from one to another.  It was mesmerizing.  Magical.  I almost didn’t want to leave, but I knew I had to.  And soon.

Father Maxwell would be worried sick.  He might even venture into the jungle by himself to try and find me.  But hopefully he’d wait for the guard to come and check on us.  They were former soldiers who now roamed the area, keeping the peace.  They’d accompanied us from Lagos, but hadn’t accepted Father Maxwell’s offer to stay for dinner after our arrival here.  I couldn’t say I’d been disappointed.  Some of those men had reminded me of… others.

But it was pretty much guaranteed that Father Maxwell would be watching for them, would wave them down and tell them that I was lost.  They’d come looking for me.  They’d find Trowa.

I didn’t want to just leave Trowa here all alone, but how could I haul him back to civilization with me?  He was so… _innocent,_ I guess was the word.  So carefree and just plain _free_ that I didn’t want the rest of the world to know about him, to find him, to change him.  Forcing him to face the shit that civilized people heaped on each other would be worse than cruel.  I couldn’t do that to him, and I couldn’t stay.

There weren’t a whole lot of other options.

Well, regardless, I wasn’t gonna be going anywhere if I didn’t teach Trowa a few new words.

He brought the cat to the nest and the two of them collapsed in a kitten-ish heap together.  The cat still didn’t seem to like me, but since Trowa had clearly given it a good deal of attention, it was willing to tolerate me.  I made sure to give them both as much space as I could.

Trowa watched me from where he was sprawled, arms wrapped around the massive cat that was purring on his chest.

I cleared my throat.  “Trowa…”

“Yes?”

I patted the nest.  “Is this your home?  Home?”

“Omm?”

“Home.”

“Home?”

I nodded.  “You sleep and eat here?”  I mimed each of these activities as I spoke.  “Is this home?”

“Yes.  Home.”

I summarized, “This is Trowa’s home.  Trowa’s home.”  I pointed to myself.  “Duo’s home?”  I gestured broadly toward the horizon.  I couldn’t even be sure I was waving my arm in the correct direction.  Timbuktu could be that way yonder for all I knew.

Trowa gently shoved the dozing beast off of his chest and approached me.  “Trowa Duo home.”  He took my hand.  “Lovers.”

Fucking hell.  One step forward, two steps back.

I tried again.  I nodded toward the cat.  “Trowa and cat.  Friends.”

He agreed with this.

“Duo and father.”  I gestured again to the horizon.  “Friends.”

A small frown creased Trowa’s brow.  Yeah, he could probably see where I was going with this.

“Duo home,” I insisted, gesturing again.

He sighed and looked off over my shoulder.  I guessed that was the correct direction back to the outpost.

I lifted a free hand to the slender line of his bearded jaw.  The short, soft hair was fine enough that, even if he’d been in the habit of shaving like I was, he’d only ever have to do it once, maybe twice, a week.  I brushed my thumb over his cheek back and forth.  He closed his eyes and leaned into the touch.

When had anyone last cared for this man?  How long had he been alone?

My throat was suddenly tight and throbbing, but I forced the words up anyway, “Please, Trowa.  Take Duo home.  Please.  Please.”

The muscles along his jaw flexed and I held my breath.

A long moment later, a pair of tears squeezed out from beneath his lashes.  I watched them tumble over his high cheekbones and leave shiny trails on his skin.  “Duo,” he whispered, opening his eyes.  “Yes.  Duo home.  Yes.”

Oh, Jesus.  Every single syllable tore my heart to little pieces, but I couldn’t stay here with him.  I couldn’t.

I drew his face close and pressed a kiss to the center of his forehead, to the bridge of his perfect nose, to each of his delicate eyelids.  I pressed soft kisses to his jaw and chin and finally his lips.

He whimpered softly and I felt my eyes sting.  He knew what I was doing.  I was saying thank you.  I was saying good-bye.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A friendly reminder: this story is rated M. Enjoy. (^_^)

Something inside me rebelled so hard at the thought of farewell that, before I realized what I was doing, I tightened my hold on his face and pressed my lips forcefully against his.  He shifted as if to reach for me, but he was probably leery of earning yet another refusal.  I pushed forward against him, bringing our bodies closer, tilting my head at an accommodating angle and doing the one thing I absolutely never, ever should have done: I opened my mouth and touched the tip of my tongue to his lips.

He mewled at my inexpert attempt. Mewled and practically crawled into my lap, his hands cradling the back of my head, strands of my hair snagging on his rough fingers, and daintily flicked his tongue between my still-open lips.

Someone groaned.  Either me or the cat, so it had to have been me.  My fingers curled into the raggedly cut (perhaps hacked at with a knife) shorter hair at the nape of his neck and I moaned at the feel of the soft, silky strands.

My God, what in the hell was I doing?

I wasn’t entirely sure, but it felt amazing.  He tasted amazing.  He wanted me and I—

I wanted him.

I wanted him and it was simply too painful for me to deny it.

My tongue slid past his lips.  I felt him shiver as I deepened our kiss.  He was making these incredible noises deep in his throat.  His pleasure at just this kiss, at the simple press of his thighs resting upon mine and our hands holding each other steady as our mouths moved together – he was drowning in it.  Overwhelmed.

Hell, I was kneading his scalp and wishing like I’d never wished before that I could have this, that I could be this close to another person and have the moment exist for all time, that I could wrap myself up in him and just stay.

“Hnn,” he pleaded when I retreated from his mouth to nuzzle his throat.  “Duo… hnnn.”

My name in his soft baritone.  That was all it took to tip the scales.  I stopped clinging to the past.  I stopped worrying about the future.  I was free.  This was freedom like I’d never felt it before.

I ran my hands down over his shoulders and he sighed.  I brushed his hardened nipples with teasing fingertips and he gasped.  I smoothed my palms around his sides to his hips and he groaned.

“Duo, puh-leese,” he whispered.  I could feel how hard he was, how hard I was.

“Yes,” I answered, and wrapped my arms around him as I lowered him carefully to the bedding.  His long, strong legs wrapped around my hips and I licked his Adam’s apple.  I planted a series of biting kisses along his collarbone.  “Trowa,” I breathed against his hairless chest.  He writhed, lifting his hips and seeking friction.  The length of him pressed against my belly and reminded me of all the clothes I was wearing that needed to be _gone._

I kissed the taut skin over his pounding heart and sat up.

“Duo!”  His hands tightened in my hair, but I wasn’t trying to get away.  I wasn’t stopping.

I grasped his wrists and pulled his hands to the top button of my jacket.  He watched and felt the movements of my fingers as I eased the button free.  Then I guided his hands to the next one.

He fumbled for a moment; either his arousal made him clumsy or the black-on-black was giving him difficulty.  I encouraged him by running my hands up and down his chest, around his sides, along his strong legs, through the thin trail of downy hair that started just above his navel and disappeared beneath the deerskin.  My jacket gaped open and I shrugged it off, balled it up, and gently placed it beneath his head.  Then I reached for my flax shift.

Trowa moaned as I tugged it up and over my head, revealing the fact that I was a little too thin, but wiry and very pale.  His hands mirrored my earlier explorations, traveling over my shoulders and sweeping over my chest.

“Ah, Trowa…”

I reached for the fastenings on my trousers and Trowa’s arms went around my waist.  His hands clutched the tail end of my braid at the small of my back and he watched with rapt attention as I undid the closure and pushed the fabric down my hips.  His lips parted at the sight of my arousal and he whimpered again.

He marveled as if I were perfect rather than the only human being he’d seen in years.  At that thought, I nearly stopped.  This wasn’t fair to him.  What choices did he have for companionship out here?  None.  He probably wouldn’t even want me if our gazes had first met on a crowded platform as we waited for the afternoon train to steam and puff its way to a stop.  No one would ever want me the way this man did here and now.  Maybe not even him in another time or another place in some other life.

I should have cared about that.

Maybe I did.

But if I stopped now, I would regret it for the rest of my life.

I drew his hand to the knots in his loincloth and that fell away, revealing every single solitary perfect inch of him.  I leaned up to kiss him.  It was a slow, rhythmic joining of our mouths that I’d never seen in the brothel where men would come for the slap of skin on skin and quick, hard, dirty fucking.

I was not going to fuck this man like a whore.  I would rather die first.

The heat rising off of his skin steamed between us, baking mine until my face and chest had to be red, as red as the vibrant jungle bird I’d envied.  I gradually settled my hips against his.  His breathing hitched at the initial bump of our arousals and his fingers clenched on my arms at the first true caress of skin on skin.  I shifted my hips and slid our cocks together, side-by-side at first, and then I guided the sensitive underside of mine so that it rubbed along the equally sensitive underside of his.  His back arched and his thighs tensed around my waist.  I reached beneath him, placing a hand at the small of his back to coordinate our movements. Joined our mouths in a slow, hot dance.

I stroked my tongue over his again and again and again until I forgot to breathe.  “Trowa,” I gasped quietly and he opened his eyes.

I brushed the back of my knuckles over his cheek and he turned to place tiny kisses on my fingers, my palm, my wrist.  It broke me to see him so gentle, so damned caring and open.  It made no sense that someone like him was here in the middle of the jungle.

I laid my forehead on his chest, rocking our hips together slowly to prolong the glorious heat between us, and tried to swallow back my tears.

“Duo,” he whispered, “puh-leese.”

I inhaled deeply, taking his scent into myself as I if I could hold it in my lungs forever.  When I looked up, he was watching me, his cheeks flushed, and his lips full from our kisses.

I shifted my hips away from his and braced myself above him with one hand.  The other I lifted to my mouth and licked my palm once, twice, and then thrice just because Trowa’s green eyes grew darker with every pass of my tongue.  Then I reached between us and gripped him.

His shout echoed.  I was sure it could be heard for miles. 

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. 

I sat back and alternately pumped and caressed him.  I didn’t care that I was still wearing my boots, that my trousers were bunched around my thighs.  I massaged him until he was panting, until his nipples were stiff and his fingers curled into the grassy bedding, then I cupped his balls in my other hand.

“Ahhhh!”  His breathless shout was beautiful.  He was beautiful.  God Almighty, save me.

Trowa opened his eyes, his gaze pleading with me and I knew he was close.

“Yes,” I told him.  “Yes.”  His eyes closed and his head dropped back.  His neck arched and I moved faster, letting him set the pace and meeting each upward snap of his hips.  I leaned over him and nuzzled his neck and told him “yes” over and over again.

And then he was gasping, his length swelling, and hot, thick liquid spilled over my fingers.

“Duo…” he exhaled in wonder and I pressed a kiss to his heaving chest.  I encountered a droplet of his essence and, out of curiosity, licked it up.  I found and licked another.  His trembling hand pushed my too-long hair back from my face.  I looked up at him through my brows and our eyes met.  His jaw was hanging open and his eyes…  He was seeing nothing else, just me.  I watched him as I slowly licked up a third splatter.

He shivered and shifted his hips closer to me, spreading his thighs wide in an unmistakable request for more.  I turned my attention to a fourth droplet, but his hand was suddenly wrapped around my cock and his hips lifted and he pressed my cockhead to the one place he was convinced it needed to go.

“Damn it,” I swore as pleasure and possibility flayed me alive.  “I can’t, Trowa.  I’ll hurt you.”

“Duo…”  His fingers tightened around me and my hips bucked with enough force to fit the weeping head of my cock against the pucker of his body, but I didn’t push inside.  I might not have had any first-hand experience with this, but I’d had a pretty thorough education.

I looked up at him, at his pleading expression.  “I’ll hurt you,” I repeated and when he still didn’t understand, I rubbed my palm over the tender skin of his inner thigh.  “Hurt,” I told him just before I pinched him.  Hard.

He startled and yelped.  Looked a little betrayed.

“Hurt,” I said again, gently massaging away the pain.  “Duo hurt Trowa.”

He seemed to consider this for a moment, but then he rolled his hips again and I felt myself press another increment deeper.  Jesus.  “All right,” I gasped.  “Have it your way, damn it.”

I gathered up his seed on my fingers.  It was still warm from his skin and the sunlight pouring over us in the humid morning.  I shifted my hips back and pressed my fingers to his hot skin.  I swirled slick circles over him and watched as his eyes closed and his breath sighed out and every muscle in his body melted with bliss.  He loved my touch.  Luxuriated in it.

He took my breath away.

His hips moved with increasing fervor as I worked.  Massaged him until he was thrusting against me hard enough to force my fingertips inside him.  Before that could happen, I retrieved more of his spent seed and coated my fingers.  I circled him once firmly, and then I slid a digit inside.

He encouraged me with a soft, sighing purr as I expanded the range of the massage.

When his breath slammed out of his lungs and his eyes snapped open, I knew I’d found what I was looking for.  I slid one of his long legs up over my shoulder and rubbed that place inside him until he was mewling again, until his length was hard and flushed.  I leaned down and took the head into my mouth as I added a second finger.

His fingers tangled in the base of my braid, but he didn’t try to force himself deeper down my throat.  He simply held on to me. 

He held on. 

To me. 

Like I was the only thing keeping him from flying out of his own skin.

With every roll of his hips, he made those soft, needy sounds deep in his throat.  I messily licked his cock and every point of contact between us was steaming and wet.

“Duo, p’leese!”

I scooped up the rest of his seed and slicked myself.  I could barely catch my breath.  Holding his leg against my chest and bracing myself above him with a hand, I pressed forward.

I pressed but stopped.  He was still too tight.  So fucking tight.  There was no way I’d be able to do this without hurting him.

“Please,” he mouthed.  I’d heard enough prayers in my life to recognize this as one of them.

Leaning in, I kissed him on his incredible mouth.  Then I reached back and tore my shoes and trousers off so that I was as naked as he was.  Grabbing his arm, I pulled him up as I lay down and he understood my intent almost instantly.  He crouched above me and I placed my hands on his hips to steady him and watched helplessly as he sat back.

Oh, God.  Too fucking tight!

This wasn’t going to work.

“Stop, Trowa.  Stop.  I don’t wanna hurt you.”

He paused, chest heaving.  I grabbed one of his hands and made a loose circle with my own fingers.  Pressing his first, middle, and ring fingers together, I positioned them against the opening of my loosened fist and pushed against him so that his fingers passed through the ring of mine.  “Like this,” I said.  “Push back like this.”  I sure hoped this was how you were supposed to do it.  Not that I really believed that the girls at the brothel would have lied to me on the eve of my auction; though they’d bickered and sniped at each other over petty things, for the sake of a boy with more fight than sense, they’d united.

Suddenly, the head of my cock was enveloped by heat and pressure and I knew he was doing it, trying it, bearing down, and pulling me in.  Oh, fuck.

I gripped his hips again to keep him from going too fast.  Closed my eyes and just fell into him.  “Trowa,” I groaned and then I was panting too hard to form words.

He moaned and seated himself completely.

Oh, God.  I was dying.  This was—we were—oh, God—

I forced myself to open my eyes.  “Trowa?  Hurt?”

When he didn’t answer immediately, I reached for his back to rub the rock-hard muscles, feeling the ridges of scars beneath my fingertips and palms.  Little by little, his rigid posture relaxed until he was crouching over me, pinning me inside his body and I wanted so badly to move, but I didn’t.  Wouldn’t.  I wasn’t going to use him like I had been used.  He was going to have control over this.  I was giving it to him because that was the way it should be.

He rolled his hips and the friction had me whining, gasping, struggling for breath.

“Trowa hurt Duo?” he asked softly.

I shook my head and gripped his hips hard enough to bruise him.  “It’s good.  It’s very good.  It’s so good,” I told him, grabbing for his hand and pressing a hot, panting-sucking kiss to the inside of his wrist.  “Trowa, please.”

I glimpsed his triumphant smile as he rocked his hips once, twice, and then, with a groan, the victorious curve of his lips was conquered by lust.  I urged him to slow down, but he was unstoppable.  A force of nature riding me in an endless tempest of heat and friction that made my skin tingle and my toes curl.  I wouldn’t last long.  Not long at all.  And then I’d be dead, but what would it matter.  This was worth it.  Completely worth it.

My fingers wrapped around his cock and his eyes snapped open.  His gaze found mine and he stared at me as his mind blanked and a soft scream punctuated by his frantic thrusts fell from his lips.  The moment I felt the first pulse surge over my skin, I dug the fingers of my other hand into his hip and snapped my hips upward to meet his thrusts.  His head fell back as I pumped him.  As I pumped up into-him-into-him-into-him-into-him—

“Trowa!” I gasped and white light and white-hot passion burned me from the inside out, destroyed everything on the inside of my skin and replaced it with wonder.  I felt luminescent in the wake of our passion.

I panted incoherently, reaching up for him and he settled himself on my chest, licked my neck and kissed my jaw.  I held him close, denying that it was over.  Even after I felt myself slide out of him, felt our combined seed cool and start to dry on my skin, I held him close.

He nuzzled against me and I combed my fingers through his hair, gently untangling the strands.  He purred and I heard one unspoken word: “Lovers.”  He didn’t have to say it for me to know that it was true.

I couldn’t leave him behind.  I couldn’t go back yet.  Maybe I couldn’t live out here with him and maybe he couldn’t live with Father Maxwell and me, but I had to explain to him that I wasn’t leaving him, that I still wanted him, than I needed him to be patient with me as I figured out how we were going to make this happen.

I had to teach him more words.


	4. Chapter 4

He dozed and I dozed with him, turning my face toward his so he’d be the first thing I’d see when I opened my eyes.

What was I doing?

I didn’t even know this man.

But I trusted him and I’d never trusted anyone this quickly in my life.

When my stomach rumbled, his lashes fluttered.  Our eyes opened and he looked at me, held his breath and seemed to be waiting for something.  I leaned closer and kissed him very softly on the lips.  Our “well done.”  Our “thank you.”

It was not a good-bye.

His smile blinded me.  That was my excuse for lying here like a lump as he used handfuls of the scented grass to clean my chest and belly.  He scrunched his nose at the mess on his own thighs and I groped for some bedding to return the favor.  When I pitched the used grass over the edge of the nest, he leaned in and gave me a little kiss in thanks.

Then he held out my trousers to me.

“Are we going somewhere?” I wanted to know.

He tied his loincloth in place while I was still wiggling into my clothes, rolling and flailing and generally fighting for a stable surface in the shifting layers of bedding.  Trowa moved to the other side of the nest and dug what looked like a leather pouch out of its grassy depths.  He slung it over his shoulder, a leather thong crossing his chest, and moved to the edge.  With effortless strength, he swung himself onto a branch where he crouched and waited for me to follow.

I knotted the laces of my boots together and slung them over my shoulder.  “Down, huh?” I muttered, not all that thrilled at the idea of repeating yesterday’s climb, but it wasn’t as if Trowa’s monster cat was gonna give me a ride.

I glanced around for it, but the beast had wandered off.  Probably to plot my demise.

Trowa held out a hand to me.  With a deep breath, I took it.  He made the descent look easy.  It wasn’t.  I scraped my knuckles, banged my elbow, stepped on small, pointy knots, and knocked my head against unnoticed branches more than once.  When it came time for me to drop from the lowest bough to the forest floor, my entire body was shaking from exhaustion.

I summoned my strength and aimed my feet at a soft-looking patch of moss.

I hit the ground and my heels promptly slid out from under me.  I tumbled backwards and landed with a wet thud.  It was too much effort to do more than lie here sprawled on the forest floor.  Trowa leaned over me and arched a brow.

“I meant to do that,” I told him in a lecturing tone, jutting my chin out and daring him to call me on it.

He snorted.

“You should try it sometime.”  I wiggled a bit into the damp moss.  “Not bad.”

He laughed at my antics.  The sound was soft and warm and surprising.  With a smile, I sat up and shook out my boots before putting them back on.  He held out a hand and I took it, letting him pull me to my feet.

We wove through the foliage until I could hear the sound of water.  The ferns blocking the path ahead parted and there was a rocky waterfall with a charming, bath-sized pool at its base.

“Hallelujah,” I breathed, reaching for the buttons on my jacket.

Trowa’s fingers brushed mine aside and I looked up into his eyes as he divested me of the black coat.  He held it up to sniff the fabric and made another face.  I laughed.  It wasn’t hard to guess why Trowa might prefer me naked.

He pulled up my undershirt and then his fingers were running along the inside of my waistband as he investigated the fastenings.  I liked watching him work things out too much to tell him what to do, and between one heartbeat and the next, he had my trousers gaping open and then he was crouching to tug at my shoes.

He was a very quick study.

He herded me toward the water and I splashed into the pool without a peep of argument.  The water wasn’t as cold as I’d braced myself for and it felt amazing. I stretched my legs down until my toes brushed smooth rocks.  I was tempted to unbraid my hair, but without a comb or brush, there was no way I’d be able to sort it out.  In a braid it would stay.

A sploosh nearby startled my eyes open and I gaped at some kind of red fruit bobbing on the surface of the pool.  I looked up and saw Trowa pluck a second from the laden bough hanging over the water and let it drop.  I guess he hadn’t forgotten about my empty stomach after all.

I considered that.  Trowa had gotten his wish – we were lovers.  But it appeared that there was more to it than just sex.  He was still taking care of me even though I wasn’t in danger.  I stared at him as he descended from his perch, dropped his loincloth, and slid into the water, disappearing beneath the surface completely.

A hot mouth pressed a greedy kiss to my belly and startled a shriek out of me.  His tongue poked at my navel.

“Holy—!”

My curse turned into a hiss as his hands cupped my ass and squeezed.  He surfaced with a very pleased expression.

“Give a fella a little warning next time, eh?”

He looked down at my lips and shifted close for a kiss.  His head tilted at an accommodating angle and my chin lifted and then that hot mouth was drawing on me, his tongue sliding against mine until he’d coaxed me into reciprocating.  Then he closed his lips around my tongue and sucked.

My hands spasmed on his shoulders.  The sound of his name caught in my throat.  The hands on my ass flexed and suddenly I was being lifted onto a rocky ledge worn smooth and round from years of running water.  Trowa released my mouth and his hands pressed my thighs apart.  My fingers tangled in his wet hair and he placed biting kisses along my collarbone.  Just like I’d done to him earlier.

I wondered what else I’d inadvertently taught him that he wanted to practice.  The thought heated me from the inside, tightened every muscle in anticipation.  He licked my chest in an innovative maneuver, lapping up the beaded water that clung to one nipple and then cleared a trail across to the other.

Trowa glanced down and rumbled at the response he’d elicited.  He looked up at me and then sank lower in the water until his eyes were level with the tip of my arousal.  He gave me a hot look and then his lips parted and my cockhead disappeared into his mouth.

“Ahh!  Ahh!” I wheezed in time with the suction.  I’d never—no one had ever—Jesus—this was—!

His fingers wrapped around the shaft and everything – every thought in my head – disappeared.  I would do anything he wanted to just have one more instant of this.  Oh, God.

Someone was whining brokenly, rasping Trowa’s name over and over again.  I tunneled my fingers into his hair and clenched them in time with his movements.  When he released me from the heat of his mouth, I slumped forward, curling toward him as his tongue lapped at me, dipping into the slit to collect the fluid pooling there.  I whimpered, too tautly strung to suck enough air into my lungs so I could beg him for more.

He took me into his mouth again, squeezing the shaft and massaging the underside, and it was indescribable.  I released his hair and groped for his free hand, interlacing our fingers and bringing them to my mouth.  I wheezed against his skin, licked his fingertips, and placed sucking kisses on the inside of his forearm.  He groaned and in the next instant, he was pulling me back into the water, aligning our hips and pressing us together with a hand at the base of my spine.

Jesus.

I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, pressing our chests together as the water sloshed with the movements of our hips.  Trowa was bracing one hand on the rocks behind me rather than pressing me against them and I marveled at his care.

My legs shifted, wrapping themselves around his hips and he panted against my neck.  I rocked my hips and my fingers curled into claws against his back and his name rolled off of my tongue into his ear.  He pressed our bodies closer and I sought out his mouth, bit his lower lip, and shoved a hand between us to grip our cockheads tightly, squeezing both in time with the movements of his hips, and then it was happening – searing heat roared inward from the tips of my fingers and toes and surged to the base of my spine.  One more squeeze and I opened my mouth over his shoulder, pressed my teeth to his skin and screamed out my whine of completion.

“Nnn!  Ahh!  Ahh!”  His desperation matched my own and he rode against me until something warmer than the water surged against my belly.  I leaned back and winced at the indentations that my teeth had left behind.  At least I hadn’t drawn blood or broken the skin.  I pressed soft kisses to each and every tooth mark and he smoothed my hair away from my face.

“Duo,” he purred, his rough-skinned hands gripping me wherever he could find purchase.

Was he thinking about my request to go home and his vow to take me there?  The sun was directly overhead now.  Half of the day was gone.  We were running out of time.

“Shh,” I soothed him.  “Shh, Trowa.”

The word “lovers” lodged itself in my throat.  With that one word, I’d be able to see him smile again, but what if he thought I’d changed my mind and decided to go home with him?  What a damned mess that would be to sort out.

I sighed.

One of the round, red fruit that he’d harvested bumped against my arm.  I fished it out of the rippling waves and reached past Trowa’s shoulder toward the cascading water to rinse it.  Despite the unhappy emptiness in my belly, I offered it to him first, ducking my head down so I could pull his downcast gaze back up to me.

He looked at the fruit in my hand, and then he looked at me.  I could see that I wasn’t the only one trying to figure out what we were doing, what we were becoming.

“Food,” I taught him, waiting for him to take a bite.

He spotted the second fruit bobbing behind my shoulder and, scooping it up, he rinsed it as I had done.  He held it out to me and repeated, “Food.”

I watched him as I leaned forward, opened my mouth, and took a greedy bite.  The juice ran over my chin and dripped down my neck.  An instant later, Trowa’s hot tongue was lapping up the mess.  When I was clean to his satisfaction, he leaned back and I lifted his fruit to his lips.  His teeth flashed and a generous portion of fruit-flesh disappeared behind his glistening lips.  I licked at the escaping juice, sipping the droplets that made it through his beard to his Adam’s apple.

We ate slowly, tended to each other after every bite.  When only the hard seeds were left, I tossed them into the brush ringing the pool and grabbed his wrist, sucking his fingers clean one by one.

He groaned and I felt his chest muscles tense beneath my steadying hand.  If he hadn’t already reached completion three times in the past three hours, I was pretty sure he would have been trying to convince me to attempt an encore.  When he imitated my technique, lapping at the skin between my sticky fingers and drawing each digit into his hot mouth, I doubted I would have said no.  Couldn’t.  Holy hell in a hand basket, what had he done to me?  Just yesterday afternoon, the thought of doing the things we’d done together would have sent me into a panic.  But Trowa was so… so…

I didn’t have the words to describe him.

He gave me a lustful look as my little finger slid out of his mouth and I wished I could be hard again.

But then he smiled and dived beneath the surface.  I braced myself for another surprise tonguing, but when he emerged a moment later, he reached for my hand and slapped a handful of dirt in my palm.

Dirt.

Great.

“What the hell am I supposed to do with this?” I grumbled.

He lifted his own handful and started scrubbing at his skin, watching me back to make sure I understood.

I did.  “Oh.  Yeah.  Good idea,” I complimented him.

“Good,” he repeated.  It seemed that he was in the mood to learn more words.  There were at least three more that he needed to know, but they would have to wait a little longer.

I scrubbed at my skin with the fine silt until it slipped through my fingers completely.  Trowa tugged at my arm, urging me to submerge with him.  I took a deep breath and down we went.  He guided my hands to the rocky crevasses lining the sides of pool, showing me where to find more sand so I could help myself to as much as I needed in order to finish bathing.

It was such a small gesture, but it said so much—he wasn’t trying to keep me dependent upon him.  I mean, of course I was.  I absolutely depended on him, but in time maybe that would change.  He would teach me what I’d need to survive.

Where his courtship gifts and displays of prowess had confused and unsettled me, this would win me over completely.  The thought was both utterly true and terrifying.

I ducked beneath the surface of the water to scrub at my scalp.  As if I could scratch my own thoughts out of my brain.

When I surfaced with a gasp, Trowa was half out of the water, reaching for my clothes.  There was no denying the fact that they stank, so I held out a hand and together we scrubbed at the cloth.  Trowa worked quickly and I realized that he must remember a time when he hadn’t worn animal skins.  Just what did he recall from his life before the jungle had become his world?

When it was time to wring out my clothes, I regretfully reached for the ledge of the pool.  Trowa’s hands slid down my legs and nudged my feet into footholds that were clearly familiar to him.

I emerged without a single scrape, bruise, or stubbed toe.

He pulled himself out of the water and followed my demonstration as I squeezed the water from my coat and beat it against a large rock.  As I draped it over a tree limb, I realized that I was standing out in the open completely naked and I didn’t even feel embarrassed.  Was this what the jungle had done to Trowa?  I would have thought that it’d turn men into vicious, simple-minded animals, but Trowa wasn’t some dumb beast.  He was a better human being than anyone I’d ever met.

He touched my shoulder and I turned.  He held up a hand, each of his fingertips covered with some kind of bright green paste.  He held still so I could investigate the substance.  I sniffed it and recognized it as the same herbs he’d used in his nest bedding.  It smelled strong, but not too unpleasant.  He dabbed the back of his neck, the underside of his arms, and just about anywhere a mosquito would find appetizing.  Sitting on top of his leather pouch was a folded leaf that contained more of the stuff.  He reapplied the paste to his fingertips and held his hand out to me inquiringly.

I turned around and lifted my braid.  In less than twenty seconds, I was the last thing in the jungle that the bugs would want to nibble on.

I captured Trowa’s face in my hands and told him, “Thank you,” and gave him what was considerably more than a chaste kiss.  He hummed happily and damn but I could forget my own name if he just smiled at me.  Then he handed me my flax shirt and black trousers for hanging.

Even in the direct sunlight, it would take my trousers and jacket awhile to dry.  For the first time, I envied Trowa his animal skin loincloth.

He didn’t put it on, however.  He found a patch of dry ground beneath arching branches and broad leaves and laid the pelt on the ground.  Stretched out, it was wide enough for both of us to sit side by side.  He claimed half and held out a hand to me.  I accepted the invitation.

Trowa put his arm around me, tucking me against his side.  He probably still thought I was leaving him soon.  Reaching for a stick, I shifted my legs to the side to make room between us and then I started to draw.

He watched me carve a circle in the dirt.  I pointed up at the sun and his gaze followed the gesture.  Then I drew two wavy lines below the circle, one on the left and one on the right.  I sketched the sun’s arc from one to the other.

“Day,” I told him.

Then I drew another pair of wavy lines but no sun.  Instead, I drew a crescent moon and poked stars into the ground.  “Night.”

Pointing to the first drawing, I repeated, “Day.”  I reached out a hand toward a small triangle of sunlight that had found its way through the foliage.

Trowa stretched out an arm as well to add his hand to mine and we cupped the bit of golden light in our palms.  “Day,” he said, then moved his hand to another ray of light.  “Day.”  He squinted up at the sky.  “Day.”

When he lowered his chin, I was ready with his kiss of reward.  He sighed softly.

“Night,” I began again, leaning against his side and pointing to the second sketch.  I dropped my head to his shoulder, closed my eyes, and let out an obnoxious snore.

He chuckled.  “Night.”

We shared another brief kiss and then I drew the most important picture of all.  Following the progression of day to night, I added a third image: another pair of wavy lines and another sun.

“Day,” he said with a slight frown.

“Yes,” I answered.  I tapped the stick on the first picture.  “Today,” I said, pointing up at the sun overhead.

“To-day,” he mimicked.

“Tonight,” I continued, miming the setting of the sun and slumber.

Trowa nodded.  “To-night.”

Then I reached out an arm in what I hoped was the east and did my best to imitate the rising sun.  I pointed to the circle – the sun – in the third sketch and told him, “Tomorrow.”

He blinked.

I summarized: “Today” – I gestured to the sun and mimed the sunset – “Tonight” – I imitated sleep – “Tomorrow” – I performed an approximation of sunrise.

Trowa watched me carefully as he said the words back to me, “To-day, to-night, to-morrow.”

He didn’t lean in for a kiss this time.  He knew I was going somewhere important with all this.

He was right.  I pointed to the first.  “Today, Duo home.”  I moved the stick to the next drawing.  “Tonight, Duo home.”  Then I placed the tip of the stick on the third image.  “Tomorrow, Duo and Trowa.”

He sucked in a breath.  I looked up and he was smiling so widely it had to hurt.  “Duo ‘nn’ Trowa?  Trowa home?  Lovers?”

Oh, how I wished it was that simple.

As I hesitated, his smile dimmed.

I quickly reached for his hand and interlaced our fingers.  “Duo and Trowa are _lovers,”_ I told him firmly, lifting his hand to my face so that he could look into my eyes and see us touching.  The happy light rekindled in his eyes.  I pointed to “today” and told him, “Duo’s home.”  Then I pointed to “tomorrow” and said, “Trowa’s home.”  I moved my hand and pointed to imaginary drawings of the days after that and with each I alternated, “Duo’s home, Trowa’s home.”

It was the best solution I could come up with despite the fact that I would be worried about Trowa when I was with Father Maxwell and vice versa.

I was already formulating a strategy for convincing the father to let me spend every other day with Trowa—

_I can teach him English and he can be our guide!_

It was foolproof!

Trowa’s hand cupped my cheek, bringing me into the full intensity of his gaze.  “Duo and Trowa.  Lovers?” he checked.

“Yes,” I promised.  “We – Duo and Trowa – are lovers.”

This was the one snag in my plans so far; how in everlasting hell was I gonna manage this aspect of our relationship around Father Maxwell?  Trowa was too open to hide it.  And if I asked him to, he’d probably misunderstand.  Or worse.

I would take a thousand fire-and-brimstone lectures on eternal damnation before I watched this man cry again.

Trowa leaned in and kissed me chastely.  A reward.  He pulled back and smiled an unfettered grin, then he kissed me deeply and I could taste his joy.  I tossed the stick aside and pressed closer to him.  I still had a couple of hours before we got back to the settlement and explanations would be necessary.  I’d figure something out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Duo’s “Give a fella a little warning next time, eh?” is inspired by a 3x2 fanart. (Digital sketch, no background, Trowa kneeling with his hands on Duo’s fly, looking up with a totally unimpressed “Hn” as Duo blusters.) If you know the one I’m talking about, please do drop me a line and share the link! Thank you!!


	5. Chapter 5

In the meantime, there was absolutely no reason for me not to straddle Trowa’s crossed legs and see how many different ways our mouths could fit together, slide apart, and reconnect.  Trowa had endless patience for my research, suggesting a few interesting ideas in the course of the investigation.  His arms were wrapped around my hips and his fingertips were sketching circles and wavy lines against my lower back when something crashed through the forest canopy with a shriek.  I flinched, looking up, and Trowa growled at the intruder.  A sassy chitter answered him and then more branches swayed and dipped.

Monkeys.  We were surrounded by a troupe of wild monkeys.

Before I could decide whether or not this was a good thing, Trowa was hauling me to my feet.  Loincloth in hand, he dashed for the pool and the tree I’d chosen for a laundry rack.  I hurried after him, snagging my boots.  As I straightened up, I was hit in the face by my sun-warmed, seemed-to-be-dry trousers.  Overhead, the branch that Trowa had scaled to harvest fruit dipped alarmingly.  I stuffed my legs into my trousers as I watched Trowa stalk a fuzzy terror from the foulest pits of Hell.  The little shit had my jacket in its cute, grubby hands.

I shook out my boots and stepped into them, knotting the laces as fast as I could.

Trowa lunged for the monkey, which leaped to another branch, but Trowa had anticipated this and had already reached out to shake the bough at the same time the monkey’s furry rump made contact with it.  The outwitted monkey nearly tumbled to the ground.  It screamed with apoplectic rage, gave up its grip on my jacket, and scrambled for the safety of the canopy.

I dived for the garment, grabbing it from midair before it could fall into the pool.  Watching the retreating clothing burglar, I quickly stuck my arms in the sleeves.

I was one piece of clothing short and Trowa spotted it first fluttering in the breeze from the forest canopy.  He narrowed his eyes as he judged the distance.

“Trowa, no, it’s not worth it!” I called, but he didn’t seem to hear me.  In the blink of an eye, he’d wrapped the loincloth around his hips, and then he took off after the thief.

“Oh, shit-on-Satan!” I snarled, initiating pursuit.

I could hear the monkeys’ jeering calls and see branches dip, scattering sunlight, with every leap one of them made.  A hint of fur.  A flash of a long tail.  That was all I saw of the creatures themselves, but they left a trail even I could follow.

I sprinted after the commotion.  I couldn’t see Trowa, but I figured he had to be up ahead in pursuit of my shirt snatcher.  I honestly had no idea what I thought I was gonna do if I caught up to him, but I couldn’t stand the thought of plunking my ass down at the pool and twiddling my thumbs as I waited for Trowa to return triumphant.

I crashed through underbrush and startled birds.  Despite only securing one button of the jacket, the jungle heat quickly trapped my sweat and soon I was steaming inside my clothes.  The still damp and dripping braid slapping against my back didn’t help, either.

I ducked beneath a cluster of low-hanging branches and was pulled up short.  I turned, glaring at the knot that had caught my braid.  I yanked it free and started moving again, but I suddenly ran out of ground.  Suddenly, there was nothing beneath me but open air.

I’m not gonna say that I shrieked, but I will admit to releasing an inventive string of profanity as I skidded down the washed out slope of loose, red dirt.  I scrambled for something – anything – to stop my descent.  Rocks and dead leaves tumbled in my wake and then I spotted a promising-looking stick up ahead.  I lunged for it as I slid past and it turned out to be connected to the roots of some huge tree that hadn’t succumbed the slope’s collapse.

I clutched my life line and just took a moment to breathe.  Breathing was good.  Better than screaming out shit that would have finally tempted the endlessly patient Father Maxwell to tan my hide.

After a moment, I decided that there wasn’t any point in hoping for angels to descend on a beam of divine light and lift my sorry sinner’s ass up to safety, so I took a gander at my predicament.

I was about two yards away from a drop-off that revealed a ravine lined with lush vegetation.  I could hear the calls and shrieks of the monkeys, but I wasn't sure if they were coming from either end of the valley or from the rocky structure at the center.

I blinked.

Yes, that really was a building down there.  Well, given the massive trees growing on and from within its crumbling walls, “ruins” would be more accurate.

“Smite.  Me…” I breathed.  How in the holy hell had people managed to haul such big ass rocks this deep into a forsaken jungle?

Curiosity roaring to the fore, I glanced around for more handholds and made my way over to what appeared to be an intact slope by grabbing one dangling root after another.  This time, I angled my body and performed a controlled slide to the jungle floor.

The foliage down here was thick as there were fewer giant trees to gobble up the sunlight.  I noisily crashed and thrashed my way toward the ruins and it wasn’t until I’d pulled myself up onto the top of a moss-covered wall that I realized I couldn’t hear the shrieks or crashing of the monkey troupe.

“Shit.”  Was Trowa long gone?  Or was I just that lost?

Well, either way, I figured I’d better make myself as visible as possible.

Arms out for balance, I walked the uneven top of the age-old walls toward the center of the overgrown structure.  It belatedly occurred to me as my heel slipped on a patch of soft moss that I probably should have taken my boots off before attempting this.

I scrambled for a more stable section of wall.  Yes.  Here.  This looked like a good spot to sit down and start calling Trowa’s name like a little, lost nitwit.

With a sigh, I started to lower myself to the sun-bleached stone—

—I didn’t even have time to produce a scream – manly or otherwise – as the wall beneath me folded, crumbled to crumbs and dust, and I was falling.

Darkness yawned around me and I was suspended in nothingness.  My stomach dropped and in that first instant of freefall, my mind blanked with terror.  I forgot to scream.  I fell in silence.  Lost.

Blackness closed around me.

And then pain rushed over me like the ocean tide and my eyes opened.  I gasped, struggling for each shallow breath.  My lungs felt flattened.  My entire back burned.  The base of my skull throbbed.

I was alive.

Holy Mary, Mother-who-squeezed-out-baby-Jesus.

I blinked up at the sliver of daylight that peeked at me from the crack in the stonework.  It looked damned far up.  How was I still among the living?

But if I’d broken any bones it was doubtful that I would be for long.

A fresh jolt of adrenaline spurted through my veins and I hastily fisted my hands and wiggled my feet.  Fingers and toes appeared to be in working order.  I bent my elbows and knees.  Yes, good.  All clear there.  Then I rolled onto my side and lurched onto my hands and knees.   Jesus, I was one lucky son of a bitch.

But there were still plenty of opportunities for fate to bite me on the ass; I had yet to get myself out of here.  I started to climb to my feet but paused, noticing the unusual flatness of the rocks under my hands.  No... not just flat.  Flat and perfectly round.  Textured and cool to the touch but warming even as I hesitated to pull away and it felt just like—

I picked one up and lifted it, wiping at the coating of grime.  There was just enough light from above for me to make out the sheen of gold.

“Holy fuck.”

I crouched down, feeling across the floor that I’d landed on and discovering identical coins as far as I could reach.  I dug down, expecting to find mud or dirt, but found only more treasure.

I boggled.  I lifted the coin in my hand and just goggled at it.

The how and why and when and who was all mashed together into a single moment of disbelief.

“Duo!”

I looked up at the sound of his distant shout, clutching the coin in my fist.  “Trowa!”

He called my name again, but it sounded further away, so I cupped my hands around my mouth and bellowed his name up at the crevasse.  I took my boots off and slipped the coin into one before knotting the laces and draping them over my shoulder like I had earlier that morning.  Then I started investigating my surroundings.

My hands made contact with something that might have once been a large pillar supporting the ceiling.  The angle it was leaning at was promising.  There was a mass of tree roots dangling over the edge of the roof that came pretty damn close to the surface of the stone.

Right.  Time to show off my jungle climbing prowess.

I took a deep breath and scampered up the fallen column, pitter-pattering up on my bare hands and feet.  I didn’t hesitate when I reached the root system.  Using the meager momentum I’d built up, I threw myself at it.  My weight caused the whole tree to shudder and creak, and I paused long enough to make sure my handholds weren’t about to break.

“Duo?”

“Trowa!” I called back.  He was closer now.  I wondered if I’d beat him to the roof.  Grinning at the thought of finally showing him that I could take care of myself every once in a damn while, I started to climb.  What footholds I managed to find scraped my feet, but I was motivated to move as quickly as I safely could.

When my hand finally passed from the gloom of the ruins into warm sunlight, I let out a happy – if breathless – chuckle.  I was nearly there!  I reached forward with my other hand.  My shoulders were aching, my arms shaking, my thighs felt like they were sizzling over an open flame.  I bowed my head and took one breath, then another, but it didn’t help.  The strain doubled and I gritted my teeth.

I was not going to give up now, damn it.  I was nearly there!

I wiggled, trying to generate some momentum, but only managed to waste more strength going nowhere.

“Damn it,” I bit out.  I didn’t dare to look up, but if he was there, I could really use a hand.  “Trowa?”

And sure enough, his rough hand clamped onto my wrist.  I blinked up at him.  He was perched on the wall, one arm reaching out to anchor his weight on a sturdy branch of the tree I was battling my way up and the other was providing me a tether to climb.  I grabbed his forearm and pedaled my legs as he pulled.

I found an unexpected reserve of strength and a lung-burning, muscle-straining moment later, I was standing opposite Trowa, bent double with exhaustion but grinning victoriously.

“Hurt, Duo?” he asked tightly.

I shook my head and wondered how long he’d been crouched up here waiting for me to come within range.  But no, that wasn’t what he’d been waiting for.  He’d waited for me to need his help, to ask for it.  He would have let me pull myself up if I could have managed it.

I grinned.  “Thank you.”

He glared at me and reached under my jacket to run his hands over my chest, back, and shoulders in a thorough search for injuries.

“I’m fine,” I told him.  “Fine.  Good.”

“No good,” he gritted out and I realized I’d scared the living daylights out of him.  Had he seen my fall from a distance?

“I’m sorry?” I tried.

“Sorry?”

No, it wasn’t supposed to be a question.  I was sorry.  Period.  “I’m sorry, Trowa.  Sorry.”

He let out a breath and pulled me close.  I hummed, my entire being soaking up his warmth and goodness.  Then he pushed me back and held me at arm’s length to examine the mud I was caked with.  His look spoke volumes.  I bit back a grin at his exasperated sigh.

Yeah, I was clearly gonna be a handful.

Maybe what I’d discovered would make up for it.  I dug the coin out of the toe of my boot.  “Look what I found!”

Trowa froze.

“The room is full of ‘em!  Can you believe it?  Gold, Trowa.  Gold!”

He swiped at the coin in my hand, but I was faster, retreating swiftly as my long-retired thief skills rose to the occasion.  “Trowa, what—?”

“Go-old?” he rasped, his shoulders rounding and his muscles bunching.  Jesus, he looked furious.  He looked _dangerous._ He looked like he was about to take on a pride of lions with nothing but his bare hands.

“Yeah.  Yes.  Gold,” I answered, inching away from him.

He must have realized I was reacting to his hostility because he suddenly stopped bristling.  He blinked, took a calming breath, and held out a hand to me.  “Duo, stop.  No gold.  No.”

 _Why the hell not?_   My confusion was plain on my face.  My thumb rubbed over the minting on the coin’s surface.

Trowa continued to hold his hand out to me.  I’d paused in my blind retreat and I was waiting for him to give me at least one reason to hand over my find.

He squeezed his eyes shut and drew a deep breath.  “Gold hurt Duo,” he whispered, gesturing me closer.

Still clutching the coin in my grasp, I complied, curious as to what he was trying to tell me that required close proximity.  When I was close enough for an embrace, he reached for my shoulders and his hands smoothed down my arms until he’d guided mine around to his bare back.  I felt the ridges of his scars against my fingertips and he repeated his warning, “Gold hurt Duo.  Please, no gold.”

I gaped at him, squeezing the coin tightly in one hand.  Did he not understand what I’d found?  This was the stuff that made the world go ‘round.  That could make a life or break it.  This was huge.

But so was his fear.  Trowa stared at me, breath held and there was no denying how afraid he was.  He was convinced that bodily harm would come to me if I kept this coin, though I still didn’t understand _why._

But it didn’t matter.  This was important to Trowa.  That was all I really needed to know.

Disappointed but resolute, I held the coin out over the gap in the roof.  Trowa and I both watched as I flipped it back into the darkness.  It landed with a clank and tinkle.  The empty sound of cold comfort.

Trowa tightened his arms around me and kissed my temple, inhaling deeply against my skin.  I rubbed my hands over his scars and wondered what he could have told me about them if he’d only known the words.

Maybe one day he would, but not today.

He reached past my shoulder and retrieved my stolen flax shirt from the branch of the tree where he’d stashed it.  Then he took my hand and led me through the unlikely maze that time had crafted of the ruins.  Either Trowa had a sixth sense about precisely where to step and not to step, or this wasn’t his first time navigating the forgotten structure in this unexpected ravine.

I was exhausted and starving by the time we made it back to the pool and I had no idea how much further we would have to go in order to reach the outpost.  I didn’t doubt that it was still on the day’s agenda, but our detour today pretty much guaranteed that either Trowa would be staying the night with us or he’d have a long trek back to his bed alone in the dark.

Trowa stopped beside the pool and placed both hands on my arms, clearly intending for me to keep my ass out of trouble. “Duo, please…” he began and finished with a gesture that could only mean—

“Stay,” I supplied with a smirk.  I sat down on an accommodating rock.  “Stay.  Yes, I will stay.”

“Stay,” he practiced.  “Yes.  Duo, stay.”  He crouched down and kissed me, feathering his thumbs over my cheeks, and then he shouldered his way into the underbrush.

So, here I was.  Sitting around behaving myself.  Just like I really hadn’t wanted to do in the first place.

With a cleansing breath, I took off my jacket and scrubbed at the caked dirt on the back and sleeves with a handful of dry leaves.  I would have washed my clothes again, but there simply wasn’t enough daylight left for them to dry.  And I was not going to walk back to the settlement bare-assed in nothing but a shift.

My trousers took a little more work, but once I scraped the top layers of filth off, they seemed marginally less awful.  I also wanted to rinse out my hair, but I could only think of how easy it would be to catch a chill in the lengthening shadows.  So I contented myself with splashing in the cascade, rinsing the afternoon adventure from my skin.

Trowa reappeared just as I was starting to miss his magical mosquito repellant paste.  As he anointed my skin again, I stared at the bundle of fur that was tied to the thong of his leather pouch.  It had probably once been a very cute, largish, living rodent of some kind, but now it looked a hell of a lot like supper.

I was dying to ask how Trowa had gotten ahold of fresh meat so easily – I hadn’t seen any weapons in his possession – but the answer would require a demonstration that we probably didn’t have time for.  I dressed in my shift and trousers and Trowa took my hand to lead me home.

The pool must have been somewhere between the settlement and Trowa’s tree because we didn’t do any backtracking to reach our goal.  I was cranky and falling-down-dead tired when Trowa lifted a frond up and out of our path to reveal a view of the outpost at dusk.  I just stood next to him and sighed.  I did not have the energy for all the explanations I’d be required to give.  I just… didn’t.  My mind was empty of all the careful words and half-truths I’d rehearsed earlier.  I prayed that Father Maxwell would just be glad to see me alive and in one piece.

Before that, though, there was one thing I needed.

I reached for Trowa’s hand and lowered both it and the concealing vegetation, enclosing us in the forest once more.  I reached up and looped my arms around his shoulders, leaned in, and kissed him.  Slow, languid, and thorough.  I combed my fingers through his hair and reveled in everything about him, including that damned purr that was vibrating deep in his throat.

“Lovers,” I breathed against his mouth and he nodded, giving me one more kiss before letting go of my waist and clearing the way again.

Everything was quiet in the outpost.  I could hear the sound of someone – the father, of course – moving around in the shanty we’d been using.  I felt guilty for leaving him to take care of the mules and feed himself today, but I was not going to feel the slightest bit bad about what I’d gained instead.

I reached back and brushed my fingers down Trowa’s arm before giving his hand a squeeze, and then I called out.  “Hey, father?  Guess who’s back!”

The front door of the hut banged open and there he was looking drawn and easily as tired as I was.  “Duo, lad!  You—” he pulled up short as his gaze moved from me to the figure just a step behind me.

“I was missed, wasn’t I?  I’d bet you missed me,” I teased with a grin and surprising jolt of unanticipated energy.

“Setting aside that gambling is a sin,” he replied, a twinkle coming back to his eyes.  He crossed the clearing to pull me into a brisk hug.  “Are you all right?”

I thumped his back.  “I’m great, thanks to Trowa.”

“Trowa, is it?”

Stepping back, I told the father, “This is Trowa.  Trowa, Father Maxwell.”

The father held out his hand and Trowa looked at it for a moment before hesitantly extending his own.  He glanced at me and I nodded, nudging his hand into Father Maxwell’s grasp.  They shook.

“Fa-her Magssull,” Trowa said quietly.

“A pleasure to meet you, Trowa.”

Trowa didn’t try to reply with words.  Instead, he unknotted his kill from the leather thong and held it out.

The father chuckled.  “Thank you.  Yes, that’s a very welcome sight.  Let’s get a fire going.”

While Trowa skinned dinner, I puttered around, talking pretty much nonstop about the jungle cat that had nearly made a meal out of me the night before, the herbs Trowa used in his tree dwelling to keep the insects away, and our run-in with the monkeys that had delayed my return.

I did not tell him about the gold.  Or the other things, the me-and-Trowa things.

Father Maxwell sighed as I finished the tale, ending with Trowa’s triumphant reacquisition of my shirt.  “You should have kept it on.”

“But it was hot,” I complained, poking the fire that I’d built.

Trowa moved to crouch beside me.  Very close.  We were almost touching as he placed the animal above the flames to roast.

Father Maxwell noticed this – I noticed him noticing – so I quickly asked, “The guard hasn’t passed by, have they?”

“Hm?  No, lad.  Not today.”

“Yeah, I figured you’d send them after me.”  I didn’t realize I was scowling and hunching my shoulders until Trowa’s hand started rubbing my back.

Father Maxwell nodded.  “Aye, I would have,” he agreed unhappily and I gave him a look.  The look he gave me in return said it all: he’d noticed that I didn’t trust them.  Then he turned his attention toward Trowa and lifted his brows.  He’d noticed that I did trust him.

“He’s all alone out there,” I tried to explain into the awkward silence.  “I’ve been teaching him English and… I just really think he doesn’t wanna be alone anymore.”

Father Maxwell smiled kindly.  “Where are we going to put him tonight?”

“He can have my cot.  I’ll take the bench.”  It wouldn’t be the first time I’d fallen asleep at the father’s desk.

“Duo, lad—”

“Don’t worry.  It’s fine.”  I would just have to convince Trowa to go along with it.

That turned out to be both more and less difficult than I’d anticipated.  Less difficult because Trowa accepted my hospitality without complaint.  More difficult because he clung to my hand until I leaned over him and gently brushed his hair back from his face until he closed his eyes and sighed out a breath.

Father Maxwell said nothing, stretching out on his own cot, and I took a seat on the bench.  I was slumped over the desktop, head pillowed on my arms and missing Trowa’s warmth with every fiber of my being when the father’s snores began marking off the nighttime.

The touch on my shoulder was unanticipated but so very welcome and I sat back, feeling Trowa’s hands on my arms.  I didn’t fight him as he maneuvered me over to my cot.  It really was only wide enough for one person.  Two, if they spooned together really closely.  Like the night before, Trowa pulled me down and pressed his chest to my back.  I knew I smelled like dirt and campfire smoke, but he sighed happily, wrapping one arm over my chest and folding the other beneath my head for a pillow.  I tucked my hands into my armpits to keep them from flopping all over the place and dived into sleep.

I woke alone to a vague memory of a growl-sigh – _Trrrrrruh-ahhhh_ – and for one horrible, heartaching moment, I was afraid it had all been a dream.

_Snip._

I blinked muzzily in the direction of our wash basin and makeshift men’s toilet.  Trowa was leaning against the wall beside a shutter that he’d propped open with my balled-up, grubby jacket, holding our small looking glass in one hand and trying to trim his beard with the other.  Despite the fact that I would have given my right arm for a little more sleep, I rolled myself off the cot and whispered for him to join me at the bench.  I opened the nearby window and the eastern sunlight poured into the room.  Father Maxwell slept on, still snoring softly.

I pushed down on Trowa’s shoulders and he sat.  I held out my hand and he passed me the scissors.  I tilted his face back and got to work.  He watched in the mirror as the perfect outline of his lips was revealed with neat snips of the scissors. I trimmed the hair on his throat and jawline so that his full beard was tidy.

Then I reached for a comb and turned my attention to the nape of his neck.  I waited for him to object and when he didn’t, I began shortening and evening out the ragged locks.  Given all the times I’d trimmed the father’s silver hair, the task should have been boringly routine.  It wasn’t.  More than once, I caught myself simply petting Trowa’s silky hair, marveling that he was here.  Under my care.

He trusted me.  My lover.  He and I were—I mean, hell, I just felt _awed._

He turned and our gazes met in the fresh, new silence of the morning light.  His beard rippled with his smile and I felt my mouth curve in reply.  Then I took a deep breath and got back to work.

I was careful around Trowa’s ears and I made sure that the strands fell in a smooth progression.  When I only had the front remaining, I paused and thought for a moment.  Trowa had a cowlick that made his hair fall the way it did.  Either I was going to cut it very short or leave it very long.  I opted for very long; he could always ask me to shorten it.

When Trowa’s haircut was done, I decided to take advantage of the accommodating angle of the sun; I splashed a little water into the wash basin and reached for the shaving kit.  It had been a couple of days and I really wanted to get rid of the stubble I could feel pushing its way through my skin.  Trowa watched as I sharpened the razor on a leather strap, soaped my face, and started scraping and sloshing about.  I was nearly done with my throat when he stood up from the bench and crossed the room to fetch his leather pouch.  From inside, he removed a small knife.

He tracked my reaction as he ran the blade back and forth on the leather just like I’d done with the razor.  I set my shaving aside for the moment and held out my hand for the knife.  Testing its edge on my thumbnail, I wrinkled my nose.  The thing was so dull that it wouldn’t even poke an eye out.  It might _just_ manage to leave you with a headache.  Maybe.  The old, cracked wood of the handle revealed the knife’s age to be somewhere between decrepit and ancient.

I fetched our whetstone and showed Trowa how to sharpen the blade.  I continued shaving as he worked on that, grinding the metal against the stone one slow, deliberate pass at a time.

I was just finishing up when Father Maxwell’s snores suddenly stopped and he shifted on his cot.

“’Morning,” I greeted.

“Murnin,” Trowa added and I grinned widely at his eager attempt.

The father chuckled.  “Good morning, lads.”  He remarked to me, “It’s a rare thing when you’re up with the dawn.”

“Lots to do!”

“Would that be work or play?”

I affected a wounded expression.  “How could you even ask me that, father?”

“See to the mules and I’ll consider it a sufficient demonstration of your work ethic.”

Grumbling, I did.  Trowa shadowed me as I worked, wrinkling his nose at the animals and dodging nimbly when Farter snapped at him with his teeth.

Angry half-horses all fed and watered, I forced myself to turn toward the makeshift stall and consider the odious task of mucking it out.  Trowa’s quiet voice forestalled me, “Today… Trowa home?  Duo and Trowa?”

I sincerely hoped so.  I reached for his hand and with the other I pointed at the sun and then drew a line to where it would be at noon.  “Noon,” I told him and he nodded.  His smile was meant just for me.  His eyes twinkled and he licked his lips.  His mouth moved though no sound emerged and I read the word he hadn’t spoken: _lovers?_

I nodded vigorously and gave him a wide grin in return.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to Annoying Little Twit and Amberly for inspiring the smexy bits near the end of this chapter: I sent out a call for kinks and they came through for me in a lusciously big way. (^_~)

As I took care of the chores, Trowa disappeared into the jungle, returning at mid-morning with a load of fruit slung over his shoulder in an animal skin – the one he’d left behind when I’d chased him from the hut the night before – and a large, dead lizard in his other hand.  He rekindled the fire from the previous evening and started roasting the skinned and gutted kill.  The ease with which he could now use his sharpened knife reminded me of the hunting knife I’d lost.  I really, really wanted it back.

Once the laundry was hanging up to dry and the scent of cooking reptile was in the air, I hauled Father Maxwell’s desk and bench outside into the light.  He sat me down and we went through the partially dried samples that Trowa had left during our second night here.  One by one, I added watercolors to the sketches.  Trowa watched this process with rapt attention, his gaze skimming over the text I’d inscribed and I wondered if anyone had ever taught him how to read.

We didn’t have enough desk space to lay out and weigh down all of the sketches for drying, so after I’d finished coloring about eight of them, Father Maxwell gave me a pat on the shoulder.  The signal that meant I was free to enjoy myself.

It wasn’t quite noon yet, so I patted the empty space on the bench next to me.  Trowa climbed onto the seat and pressed against my left side.  Taking a new sheet of paper, I carefully wrote out five letters.

T-R-O-W-A.

“Trowa,” I said.  I pointed to each one and made the accompanying sound.  Then I handed the stick of charcoal to Trowa so he could write it out for himself.

“Trowa,” he said with a soft smile.

I nodded.

“Duo?” he asked, passing the charcoal back to me so I could write it out.  He stared at the letters and rolled each off of his tongue with great pleasure.

Now that I’d captured his interest in reading and writing, I started by listing the alphabet.  Then I spelled out all the words he’d learned so far with the exception of one.  He gave me a long look, but didn’t prompt me to write it.  I was surprised, to say the least, that Trowa wasn’t being blatantly lover-ly.  But then, his cat hadn’t taken to me right away, so maybe he thought it would take time before Father Maxwell could accept Trowa’s role in my life.

It was a really amazing deduction.  It was too bad he was missing all the vital details that would make it impossible for Father Maxwell to give us his blessing.  I was not looking forward to explaining things to either of them.

Luckily, that wasn’t why I needed to talk to Father Maxwell today.  It was finally noon and I’d promised Trowa that we’d be leaving.  It was time for me to follow through on that.  I found the father in the shanty, taking refuge from the blinding sun by drowning himself in the pages of a thick volume.

“So, I was thinking,” I began.  “It might be a good idea for me to start teaching Trowa the names and words for plants and flowers.  Maybe he could be our guide.  It’d really be something to see ‘em for ourselves at some point, wouldn’t it?”

Father Maxwell looked up from the botanical reference book he was consulting.  The look he gave me was one I knew well.  I did my best not to look like I already knew what was coming.

“Sit down, lad,” he said, gesturing to the cot opposite his.

I sat.

He continued to look at me.

I continued to look expectant.

“Trowa seems very attached to you.”

I shrugged.

He inquired searchingly, “Are you all right with that?”

“Um…” I blinked.  I’d been expecting something a lot more lecture-ish.  Not this gentle, parental concern.  “Yeah.  He’s… a really good person.”

Father Maxwell nodded.  “I want to be clear, Duo, that you do not have to – in fact, you absolutely should not – do anything you don’t want to.”

I frowned.  A confused retort gathered on the tip of my tongue.

“You have choices now that you werena given when you were a wee boy,” he reminded me softly and hearing his brogue thicken with emotion made my chest ache.  The sound of it was like a warm embrace.  He said, “You’re a grown man.  I havena told you that afore, I ken, but I speak the truth.”

Where the hell was all this coming from and where was he going with it?  I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know.

“As such, you’re entitled to private time and you’re entitled to spend it with a friend if you so choose.”  He smiled.  “It’s high time you had one, lad.”

I chuckled, releasing the breath I’d been holding.  “Uh, thanks, father.”

He cleared his throat and when he spoke next the heartfelt brogue was little more than a lilt.  “Go out and learn wondrous things, Duo.  Just take care and listen to your instincts.”

I nodded.  “I will.”

He nodded.  “All right.”  He clapped his hands on his knees.  “So, when can I expect you back?”

“Tomorrow, noon,” I said.

If he was surprised that I was planning to stay in the jungle overnight, it didn’t show.  “Don’t forget your knife.  Take a water flask.”

“Yes, sir,” I replied, amused by his urge to father me.

He grinned wryly.  “Just because you’re your own man, that doesn’t mean I’m not going to remind you to be careful and safe.”

“I know,” I said thickly.  “Thanks.”

I quickly gathered the things I’d need and put them in a dry canvas pack.  I gave the father a squeeze on the shoulder, promised to bring back some more samples for us to record, and then I bounded outside.  Trowa spotted the pack slung over my shoulder and his grin was brighter than the midday sun.

“Help me with the desk, Trowa,” I asked, gesturing for him to grab one end while I took the other.  We put it back in the shanty along with the bench and, with a jaunty wave, we were on our way.

It was all I could do not to sprint for the tree line.  Trowa ducked into the thick foliage and I put my hand on his shoulder to guide me.  We’d tromped a couple dozen paces into the jungle before I snapped.  Or he snapped.  I grabbed his hand and he turned – or was already turning – and then my arms were around his waist and his hands were cupping my face and we were kissing.  Finally.

I licked at his lips and he opened his mouth and sudden heat and steam – hotter and steamier than the jungle – was rising up from my shirt collar.  I nipped his tongue and his hands clenched.

He pulled back, giving me a hot look to rival my feverish skin, then cast a quick glance back the way we’d come.

Yeah, we were still a little too close to the outpost for this to go anywhere.  “Sorry,” I said, genuinely embarrassed by my enthusiasm.

Trowa pressed his fingertips to my lips to shush me.  “No.  No sorry, Duo.” 

All right then.  I wouldn’t be sorry.  I’d just… be with him.

He kissed me gently, briefly, and took my hand.  We jogged along the trail that I’d seen on my first, very brief jaunt into the jungle and the leather pouch slung across his chest bounced against my arm.  I felt the handle of the knife knock against my elbow and pulled him to a stop.

Trowa looked at me expectantly.  I pointed to the pouch and he loosened the ties, opening it for me so I could retrieve whatever I wanted.  Having grown up with boys and girls who viciously guarded their few precious personal belongings, it kind of amazed me that I was welcome to whatever I liked of his.  This had to be a trait unique to Trowa himself.  There was nothing about surviving in the jungle that would encourage such generosity with one’s meager resources.

I carefully reached within.

“Trowa’s knife,” I told him, holding the blade flat across my palm.  “This is Trowa’s knife.  Your knife.  Where’s my knife?  Duo’s knife?”

He blinked and grunted.  He lifted the pouch in a mute request for me to put it back – I guess Trowa didn’t want me to be running around with a sharp knife in my hand.  No idea why. 

We detoured off the path and, some minutes later, Trowa introduced me to another clearing.  It didn’t look familiar but since he slowed down and started rummaging in the undergrowth, I assumed that this was near where he’d embraced me the night before last.

Not for a minute did I think that he and his cat had somehow coordinated the attack on that other jungle beast, the one that had been stalking me.  It was far more likely that by wrapping himself around me, Trowa had ensured that when his cat had moved to protect Trowa, I’d also been included.  Jesus, what a risk he’d taken.  He could have left me – a stranger with a knife chasing after him through the dark jungle – to fend for myself.  Instead, he’d thrown his lot in with mine.  He’d asked what seemed to be his only companion to risk life and limb to save mine.

I just… would never stop being astounded by him.

But wonderment wasn’t going to help move things along, so I scanned the jungle floor for any sign of my hunting knife, focusing on the stumble zone around various promising-looking logs and deadfall branches.  Trowa pulled himself up into one tree after another to get a bird’s eye view, but neither of us found it.

“Never mind, Trowa,” I said, gesturing for him to come down.  The knife was lost.  There was no point wasting any more time looking for it.  Maybe I’d be able to barter for a new one from one of the soldiers in the guard.

I made a sour face at the thought of asking for any kind of favor from one of them, but there probably wasn’t another way to replace it shy of making the half-day ride to the crossroads.  And then there’d be no guarantee that I’d be able to even find a good blade among the sojourning merchants at the inn.  True, Father Maxwell and I had other knives, but I needed one that was mine and mine alone.

With a resigned sigh, I looked up at Trowa where he was perched up in a tree.  Instead of jumping down, he grinned at something in the canopy across the way.  He stretched down a hand to me, inviting me to join him.

I clamped my fingers around his wrist and he braced himself against a solid branch as I hauled myself up.  I wound up hugging the trunk of the tree as I stood on the bough opposite his.  He pointed across the way and I watched as a red-plumed bird just like the one I’d seen before tended to something in its nest.  There was a high-pitched cheep of complaint and I realized there was a single, tiny chick bouncing around in a frantic demand for sustenance.

The adult bird did its best to control the situation, dipping its beak into that gaping mouth, but as no food was transferred, the chick’s antics continued unabated.

Then the sunlight reflected off of a flutter of red feathers.  A second bird with an impressive, feathered crest and even longer tail feathers swooped in with the midday meal.  I gripped Trowa’s arm where it curled around the tree and grinned.  Not that there was anything wrong with the study of botany, but Father Maxwell was really missing out by ignoring the avian residents of the jungle.

Trowa’s arm shifted under my grasp and I felt him move around to crouch on a slightly higher branch behind me.  He squatted and his knees fit on either side of my waist.  He leaned an arm on my shoulder and I wrapped one around his knee.  We watched for several minutes in silence and then Trowa tapped me on the arm and pointed across the way.  He made a soft, questioning noise in this throat and I figured that meant he wanted to know what this mess would be called.

I taught him “bird” and then I taught him “father,” “mother,” and “child.”

He contemplated these concepts for a moment and then he asked, “Duo father?  Father Maxwell?”

I tilted my head to the side.  “Well… my father and mother are dead, I figure.  No father.  No mother.  Father Maxwell is… my friend.”

“Hmm,” he rumbled.  “Friend.”

I turned slightly so that I could study his profile.  “Trowa’s father and mother?”

He shook his head.  “No father.  No mother.  No child.”

No child?  What?  He glanced at my frown and collected my hand from where it was curled around his knee.  He turned it over and placed it palm-up on his thigh and carefully drew a line from top to bottom across my skin much like I’d sketched in the dirt the afternoon before.

“Father,” he illustrated.  “Mother.  Child.  Child.”  His fingertip lingering on the last of the four lines, he added, “Trowa.”

Oh my God.  He’d had an older brother or sister.  I wiggled my index finger and repeated, “Father” – middle – “mother” – and then I wiggled my ring finger and waited.

He frowned, but he answered quietly, “Cat-ee.”

“Cat?  Your friend?  Trowa and Cat?” I checked, confused.

He shook his head.  “Cat-ee.”

I wracked my brain for what he might mean.  A name?  “Katrina?”

He shook his head again.

“Catherine?”

He paused and looked at me.  I could just about see him sorting through distant memories.

“Catherine,” I repeated.  “Cathy.”

He nodded.  “Yes.  Cathy.”

“Cathy.  Sister,” I told him.

“Yes, Cathy.  Sister.”

“No father?  No mother?  No sister?” I asked him quietly.

He nodded once.  “No.  Trowa and Cat – child.”

“What?”

His smile was brimming with understated pride.  “Trowa – father.  Cat – child.”

Oh my God.  He’d raised a jungle cat?  I asked, disbelieving, “What about Cat’s mother?”

Trowa shook his head.  “No.  No mother.”

I gaped at him.  “But… how did you feed a leopard cub?”  At Trowa’s lifted brow, I simplified, “Food?  Cat’s food?”  I waved my hand helplessly.  “How?”

He squeezed my arm and swung down from the bough, landing in near silence in the jungle deadfall.  He reached up a hand for me and I joined him with a noisy stumble.  Another short run found us near the pool and cascade.  I could hear it just on the other side of the brush.  He pulled me over to a thicket and crouched down.  I peered within and, at first, I didn’t see anything.  But then I noticed something that looked like a knot of braided twine looped beneath a bent bough.

A snare.

Well, that explained where he’d been getting fresh meat from.

I grinned at him.  “So you’re a hunter, are you?”

He tilted his head to the side, probably trying to figure out if I was impressed or not.  I was, I absolutely was, but I was also eager to show him that a hunter couldn’t catch everything.

I reached out a finger and plucked the thong across his chest.  Then I wrapped it once around my finger.  “Hunter?”

“Hunter?”

I prowled forward until he sat back on his heels.  “Hunter,” I said one more time and then I pounced.

He landed on his back with an omph! and I quickly ducked my head down and sealed my lips over his neck.  I sucked hard and his yelp flipped upside down into a groan of surrender.  At that point, I scampered.

He rolled onto his hands and knees, watching me as I retreated.  “Are you a hunter or not?” I dared him with a slow smile.

His eyes narrowed.  I stopped moving and waited for his move.  Both of us could easily read this kind of body language: tense and ready for either a fight or flight.

He leaped for me and I dashed around the nearest tree.  He didn’t try to remain silent and neither did I.  I laughed as I stopped, dodged his grasp, and danced out of reach.  He spun about, fixed his glittering eyes on me, and stalked toward me.  One step.  A second.  A third.

I lunged backward and Trowa matched the motion, leaping forward.  I zigged left and he cut me off.  I zagged right, same deal.  He was a hunter all right and it looked like I was gonna be the very special dinner guest.

My entire body jerked and I focused on the scene just over his shoulder, my eyes widening with alarm.  He took the bait and turned around.  By the time he figured out there was nothing there, I had a decent head start.  I ran, my canvas pack bouncing against my back.  Trowa was undoubtedly faster than me, but I was wearing boots and he wasn’t.  I sprinted in what I remembered being the direction of his tree-home, glancing behind me every few strides to gauge his progress.  Despite his bare feet, he was closing fast.  Time to lose the pack.  When I could sense him close enough to grab the end of my braid, I shrugged out of the pack and whirled around.

He crashed into me and we both landed with enough force that his momentum rolled him off before he could grab me.  I was out of breath, but I wasn’t out of ideas yet.  We both surged to our feet and squared off.  Trowa’s chest was heaving and he was flushed.  I probably looked about the same plus my tangled, disheveled braid.  I lunged to the side and he caught my arm.  I used my momentum to spin him around.  I only needed him to lose his balance for an instant—!

But he didn’t.

The next thing I knew, I’d been hefted up and I was hanging over his shoulder.  “What the hell!  Trowa!  Down, damn it!  Put me down!”

His hand squeezed my ass and I barked out an incredulous laugh.  “Oh, yeah?”  Well, two could play at that game.  I reached down and pinched his.

He jerked and I squirmed and we tumbled to the forest floor.  I landed straddling his waist and groped for his forearms, but he threw his hips up and suddenly I was flat on my back and he was crouching over me.  Not touching, not kissing, just crouching and watching me as our breaths boomed in the silence.

As my sweaty brow began to cool and my breathing eased, I lifted myself up, bracing my shoulders on my bent elbows.  I placed a kiss on Trowa’s shining neck, sampling his sweat.  Then I returned to the faint mark my mouth had left when I’d started this whole chase thing.  Sealing my lips over his throat, I inhaled slowly, but I didn’t try to darken it.  How in the name of Saint Peter would I explain that to Father Maxwell tomorrow?

Trowa exhaled slowly and nudged his chin against my cheek, dislodging my mouth.  He crowded forward, and began charting the underside of my jaw with tiny hot licks.  My jaw clenched shut on a plea.  He nipped the bunched muscles beneath my ear, and then he drew my earlobe into his mouth.

Sweet, sweet, sweaty Jesus.

I turned toward him and the tip of his nose rubbed along the side of mine.  His hair fell over my brow and I closed my eyes.  His lips brushed against mine.  I nipped blindly at his mouth but caught only air.

“Hmm, Duo,” he soothed me, rubbing his cheek against mine.  I licked the lobe of his ear and he shuddered.  It was the perfect opportunity for me to nibble his lower lip, which I did.

“Trowa,” I breathed against his mouth, meeting his open eyes with mine.  “Lover.”

He groaned and bent his head down to kiss me, to chart my mouth with his surging tongue.  I shifted beneath him as the heat and pressure started to make my pants feel a bit tight.  Yet another vote in favor of the loincloth.

At the thought of it, my fingers twitched and I reached for his thigh, sliding my fingers up to his hip and the knot that if undone would leave him completely bare.  He grabbed my questing hand and leaned back.

“No?  Really?” I asked askance.  “You want me to stop?”

“Today, stop, Duo.”

I pouted.

“Tonight,” he continued on a purr, “no stop.”

Well.  All right then.  I supposed I could wait.  Especially if there was a bath in the meantime.  Which, it turned out, there was.


	7. Chapter 7

The urgency from the day before was gone – the day Trowa’d believed would be our first, last, and only.  Today, we floated in the pool, lazy and slow.  Our skin brushed.  Our fingers tangled and drifted apart.  Trowa watched as I undid my braid and scrubbed my scalp.  He rubbed sand over my back, massaged my shoulders and neck until I leaned my head back against his shoulder and he pressed a delicate kiss to my throat.  More than once, I felt the water swirl over my cock and between my thighs in response to a sweeping motion of his arm that didn’t quite touch my skin.  It would have been so easy to make something happen, but I let him tease me with those ghostly caresses of current instead.

We made it back to the tree just before sunset.  I tied my boots onto the canvas pack and Trowa took my washed and still-damp clothes and we started to climb.  From the soft grass bed, we watched the sunset paint the jungle gold and rose and orange.  Trowa shared a dinner of fruit and nuts with me.  I combed out my still damp hair.  Trowa’s fingers helped, lifting the locks off of my back so that the wind could kiss away the moisture.  Eventually, I slid the comb back into my pack and just let him work through the mass.  He crouched behind me, tunneling his fingers along my scalp and gently pulling back again and again in a massage that reminded me of rolling hips and stroking tongues.

But he didn’t seem in any hurry to get to that part.

He braided my hair.  Given the skill that had clearly been necessary for building his nest, I trusted him to manage this.  He tied off the end and wrapped his arms around me, pressing his chest to my back and leaning his head against mine.  As darkness fell and we lost the daylight, Trowa began pressing kisses to my skin.  Below my ear at first, then tugging the collar of my shift aside to place a second on my shoulder.

When his hands reached for the hem and tugged upward, I lifted my arms.  He laid me down in silence and darkness, the shift balled up beneath my head for a pillow.  I couldn’t see him or hear him, but I could feel his skin.  He settled himself against me, stretching out so that his knees pressed against the outside of one of mine and his toes brushed my foot.  I rolled toward him, up into him.  Our mouths connected and there was only scent and taste and touch.

His hand upon my throat, the pad of his thumb resting on top of my pulse.

The long, slow stroke of his tongue against mine.

A kiss on my belly.  Another, lower.  A third, lower yet.

Warm, rough hands coaxing my thighs open.

Shoulders beneath my knees.

A breath against my cock, my balls.

His short, soft beard brushing against tender skin.

Lips and chaste kisses along the length of my shaft.

His name on my breath.  “Please,” I said.

“Yes,” he answered.

I came slowly, languidly in his mouth as he moaned deeply and my skin tingled with heat and the feel of him in the darkness.

“Trowa.”  I reached out and skin slid against skin.

He sighed at the sweeping touch of my hands.

His breathing hitched as the tip of my braid painted a path from the side of his neck down the center of his chest.

He growled softly when my shoulders pressed against the inside of his knees.

Whispered my name when I blew a warm breath over his hard length.

Lost his breath entirely when I licked and nipped and kissed every bit of him.

“Duo,” he breathed.  “Lover.”

“Yes.”

I searched for his hand and our fingers came together, locking and loving.

When he came in my mouth, my thoughts were of him.  Just him.

We kissed until we fell asleep.

We woke to the crack of thunder and a flash of lightning.

“Trowa?”  I sat up and winced at the soreness in my back.  From my fall two days before and our game of chase earlier.

“Shh,” he said.  “Home.  Good.”  And then there was a soft rustling and Trowa pulled me into the center of the nest which was suddenly hollow.  Lightning flashed and I glimpsed a large, woven, grass mat unfurling above us.  When the downpour began a few heartbeats later, Trowa and I were warm and dry, hidden from the storm.

When I next woke, it was to caressing hands and beard-edged kisses along my back.  It was still raining, but softly now, and when I looked over my shoulder there was just enough light for me to make out the contrast between Trowa’s red-brown hair and his tanned skin.  I looped my arms around him and he settled his hips over mine.

Slow.  Soft.  He loved me like he was a warm, misting rain and my skin was made of petals.

I scratched my fingernails against his scalp.  He rubbed his chest against mine.  Our hips rocked together.

The rain finished before we did.

I pressed my forehead against Trowa’s neck as my breathing deepened from shallow pants and my pulse slowed.  He was as affected as I was, but where I hid against his skin and clutched at his arms, his fingertips drew poetry on my body.  Oh, God.  I could feel how much he cared – how much he loved me.  I’d only met him the day before yesterday – just the day before yesterday – but we’d fallen into each other with such speed and force that it would be impossible to separate us.

It would kill me to leave him.  To lose him.

That night – three nights ago – in the jungle when I’d been surrounded by danger and darkness, I’d thought my body couldn’t possibly withstand more terror.

I was wrong.

“Duo?” he asked as I tried to exhale my fear and tears before either could rip through my control.

He pulled me closer and it helped to hold me together.  When I thought I might be able to speak, I leaned back.  His hair fell over his brow; I reached up to push it back.  His eyes looked black in the deep shade of the grass mat above our hollow.

I told him gravely, “No Trowa, no Duo.”

He studied my face for a moment and I felt those damned tears swim up and flood my eyes.  I was such a fucking mess.  I couldn’t make out his features, but I heard him mewl.  A small sound that was full of so many things: need and fear and comfort and surrender.

I wrapped myself around him tightly.

It was a long time before I felt strong enough to move.

When I finally took a deep, cleansing breath, it filled me with our combined heat and scent and it gave me a sense of peace.  I stretched, splaying and wiggling my toes.  I brushed Trowa’s instep and his foot jerked.

I chuckled.  Who would have guessed that he could still be ticklish under all that thick skin?

His fingers poked my side, returning the favor and I wiggled.  He laughed and we shared a smile.  He brushed my hair back and reached up to roll up the mat and let the sunshine in.  I heard a rumbling purr and looked up and into the face of Trowa’s cat.  His Cat.  His child.  The animal still didn’t look very happy to see me.

Trowa didn’t move.  He just looked up at Cat and purred back, “Trrrrrrruh.”  His hands moved over my bare skin soothingly.

I swallowed thickly.  I guessed it was time to introduce myself to his family.  I lowered my gaze, sending a quick look in Trowa’s direction, hoping like hell I was doing this right.  He nodded in encouragement.  I bit my lip and slowly moved so that I was sitting up and my face was level with the leopard’s massive paws on the surface of the nest.  I bowed my head and hummed.  It came out a little high-pitched either because I was trembling or because I was clutching Trowa’s arms tightly.  Or both.

Trowa’s hands continued to rub, warm and real, against my skin as I waited for Cat to do something.

I felt its hot breath against my forehead an instant before its whiskers tickled my brow.   A wet nose bumped my temple and then a furry jaw slid over the top of my head in one long, rough, disgruntled caress.

Then Cat got up and left the nest.

I sought out Trowa.  He was beaming.

I guessed I’d passed.

Not that Cat suddenly had an urge to cuddle with me or anything.  One cool look from its golden eyes and I knew we were enjoying a truce.  Cat wouldn’t eat me as long as I smelled like its Papa Trowa.

Trowa sat up and looked at me, waiting for something.  I took a wild guess and handed him his rumpled loincloth.  It had been kicked into the bedding at our feet.  “Go and play with Cat,” I told him.  “Trowa and Cat.”  I gave him a light shove on the shoulder.  “Go.”

He gave me a kiss, wrapped himself up in his deerskin, and lunged out of the nest.  As Trowa and Cat stalked each other in the branches, I assembled my belongings.  Everything had made it under the protection of the grass mat so my things were all nice and dry.  I got dressed and rolled the sun-dried mat into the hollow and covered it with bedding so that the nest looked like it had the day before.

With a twinge of regret, I shook out the plait that Trowa had woven into my hair and combed the bits of grass and herbs from the locks.  By the time I was done re-braiding, Trowa and Cat were flopping down in the nest.  Cat rolled onto its back and Trowa rubbed the animal’s belly.  Given the lack of evidence to the contrary, I deduced that Cat was female.

I supposed that made sense.  From what I knew of London’s feral cats, the males were the least likely to tolerate people and stay in one place and Cat seemed to think that Trowa’s tree was also her tree.

When Cat flipped over and watched me from where her head was resting above Trowa’s knee, she gave me a look and flicked her tail once as if to say, “All right, then.  I’ll share.”

Trowa gestured me closer and I let him tuck me up against his other side.  Cat’s wide, flat tongue licked Trowa’s knee and he chuckled, scratching her behind her ears.

I just watched him and grinned like a moron.  Trowa was a family man, trying to get his “daughter” and his lover to accept each other.  It seemed to be going well, but I was glad he wasn’t trying to rush it.  I certainly wasn’t ready for leopard rough-housing.  Just yesterday, Cat and I had barely been able to share the nest between us and now we were part of Trowa’s kitten pile.

His patience was astounding.  So was whatever magic that made this possible at all.

He turned his soft smile away from Cat’s blatant attempts to monopolize his affection and curled his hand behind my neck, pulling me close for a kiss.

I kept it brief given the tenuous state of Cat’s tolerance.

When my stomach rumbled, Trowa shooed Cat out of the nest and he and I climbed down.  This morning, he showed me where several fruit trees were located and we gathered enough to take back to the settlement for Father Maxwell.  Without me having to say a word or even pause to admire them, Trowa carefully harvested several blossoms, including their stem and leaves.  He’d noticed that they were the primary focus of the work Father Maxwell and I were doing.

I was pretty sure that it would be impossible to keep a secret from Trowa.

As we approached the settlement, Cat disappeared into the jungle and I sighed.  I’d also have to leave our carefree affection behind in the jungle.  At the rate things were progressing with Cat, Trowa would probably be expecting me to tell Father Maxwell about our, er, us.

 _Not today,_ I prayed.  _Please, God, if you have any mercy in you at all.  Not today._

My steps slowed and shortened the closer we got to the tree line and Trowa scooped me up in his arms without me having to tug on his hand to get him to halt.  He buried his face against my neck, inhaled deeply, licked my skin, and sighed happily.

I sought out whatever I could reach of him with my lips.  Civilization – even when it consisted of just one more person – was really starting to chafe my ass.

When he loosened his arms and let me slide down to my feet, I poured every single thought into the kiss I pressed to his mouth, drawing his lip in with enough suction to make him groan.

“Today, Duo’s home,” he summarized on a thin breath and I nodded.

I promised, “Tomorrow, Trowa’s home.”  And I was already wishing it was tomorrow.

He rubbed my sides and the heat he generated in me twisted until it was just shy of anger – how could Trowa be so damned patient all the time?  About even this?  I looked up at him, a snarl building around my aching heart, and just as suddenly as it had blossomed, my irritation evaporated.  His eyes were dark and he was looking at me with so much longing that I knew he wanted what I wanted even though he knew we couldn’t have it, knew he’d – we’d both – be happier if we simply accepted it and got on with taking care of our respective responsibilities.

How he taught me this with a look, I couldn’t have explained, but he did.

He lifted my hand and pressed a slow kiss to the inside of my wrist.  This touch would have to be enough until we were alone again.  With reluctance, I twisted my captured hand around and grasped his.  Then I let him go and we passed from the complete and total freedom of the jungle into the realm of expectations.

“Afternoon, father!” I called out in greeting and headed into the hut to deliver what Trowa and I had gathered.  We broke our fast and afterwards, as I chewed on a stick to clean my teeth, Trowa helped me haul the desk outside again.

The heavy rain the night before was making the jungle steamier than I could have imagined.  When Father Maxwell slapped at a mosquito for the third time in the course of a minute, I nudged Trowa and gestured to his pouch.  He readily removed the leaf-wrapped paste and I waved the father over.

“Prepare yourself to experience relief,” I told him and rubbed dabs of the green paste on his exposed skin.

The father was fascinated by the recipe, asking endless questions until I just turned to Trowa and pointed to the paste and then gestured to the botanical samples he’d collected.  He shook his head.  No, none of these were ingredients.

I sighed.  “Father Maxwell wants to make some of this.  How do you make it?  How?”

“How…” Trowa repeated, expression clearing as he recalled my question the day before about how he’d managed to feed Cat, and nodded.  He pointed up at the sky and I realized he was trying to tell me that he’d be back later in the afternoon.

“Thank you,” I told him, replacing the paste in his leather pouch.

He gripped my shoulder, “Duo, stay.”

 _“Today,_ yes,” I agreed and he smiled.

I had no doubt that he would someday teach me where to find the plants that comprised the insect repellant.  Just not today.

With a nod to Father Maxwell, he disappeared into the jungle.  Hopefully, Cat would meet up with him and he wouldn’t be completely alone.

I bit back a sigh and sat down on the bench.  I reached for the pen and ink.  “Right, what’s first, father?”

We worked in the sunshine until the heat and humidity started to make me sweat on the sheets of paper I was using to record Father Maxwell’s observations.  I was on the verge of suggesting that we move indoors where we could enjoy the shade with all the windows open to create a cross-breeze, when I heard something in the distance.

The thump of hoof beats.  The soft jangle of metal tack.  An equine snort.

The guard had arrived.

I resisted the urge to reach for the knife I didn’t have.  I didn’t glance toward the jungle and Trowa therein.

“Say nothing about Trowa,” I whispered to Father Maxwell.

He glanced at me in question.

“Not this time.  Please.”

“All right, lad.”

And then fourteen men on horses were riding into the abandoned outpost.  “Good day, Father Maxwell,” the captain, a man named Tsuberov, called.  “Are you well?”

“Yes,” the father replied formally, moving forward to welcome our visitors.  “Can we offer you hospitality, sirs?”

“Thank you.  Can we get some water for the horses?”

“Of course.”  The father glanced at me and I nodded.  I would be happy to feed, water, and rub down each and every one of their mounts if it kept me away from these men, especially the two youngest – Alex and Mueller.  The two with the most to prove and least amount of restraint to go along with it.

I didn’t rush through my new set of chores.  I drew water.  I measured out and hauled feed.  I removed their tack, shook out the sweaty saddle blankets and laid them on the thatched rooves to dry in the sun.  I rubbed down the saddles and cleaned the lather from the bridle bits.  It was nearly evening when the horses were finally taken care of and I was beyond relieved that I hadn’t seen Trowa.  I just wished I’d been able to feel his gaze on me, watching me.  Then, at least, I’d know that he was all right.  Still, he’d survived in the jungle for years.  I had no reason to believe that today would be the day to bring an end to that.

I got a campfire started, enduring the watchful stares of the bored men as Quinze, Tsuberov’s lieutenant, listened to Father Maxwell describe our progress.

“I was about to offer the services of a local man – a native in the next village,” Quinze remarked as he studied my illustrations, “but it looks like you don’t need the help.”

Perhaps because he suspected we had an expert of our own?

I refused to tense.

“We’ve done pretty well, but these are early days yet.  If he has your vote of confidence, I’d gladly take him on,” Father Maxwell diplomatically replied and I smothered a grin at the smooth move: if the man proved untrustworthy, then Quinze would be held accountable.

“Hmm.  I’ll see if he’s available.”

An equally non-committal response.

“Your boy know how to speak, father?” Alex jeered, lounging against the wall of our hut, tracking my every move.

I resisted the urge to snarl at him.  I recited Hail Marys in my head as I filled a pot with water for boiling.  It was porridge tonight and if they didn’t like it, they could shove their faces in a pile of horse shit and chew on that.

Father Maxwell knew that if he admitted to my ability to speak perfectly well, it would only draw attention to me that I would not welcome.  He said, “Allow him get on with his work if you would, sir.”

Alex subsided with a careless shrug and a predatory smirk.

The sun dipped lower and with it my hopes that these shit buckets would ride off and hassle someone else.  I passed out dinner at sunset, sacrificing all of the fruit that Trowa and I had gathered for Father Maxwell because our guests would surely catch their over-ripe aroma in the morning and know we’d held out on them.

I hated this.  Every minute of it.

On the other hand, if they’d shown up yesterday afternoon after I’d left with Trowa… I suppressed a shudder at the thought of leaving Father Maxwell to face all fourteen of them by himself.

When the porridge was ready, I served our guests first and then quickly passed Father Maxwell a full bowl.  By that time, Mueller was coming up for seconds.  Ten minutes later, I was scraping the bottom of the pot and my own bowl was still clean.  It looked like I wouldn’t be getting anything to eat tonight.  This wouldn’t be the first time I’d gone without a meal, not by a long shot, so it wasn’t gonna kill me.

Just make me really, really aggravated.  A mood I was sure to share with as many unfortunate souls as possible.

“Lad,” Father Maxwell said, passing me his bowl as I started rolling up my sleeves for clean-up.  I noticed that he’d saved half of his porridge for me and tears prickled my eyes.  I hauled the pot over to the well, slurped down the leftover porridge as fast as I could and got on with things.  The guard could do their own damned washing up.  I was done with the lot of them.

When I returned – with great reluctance – to the gathering around the campfire, an irresistible glimmer caught my eye and my head snapped around.

I watched a single gold coin roll across Tsuberov’s knuckles, flipping end over end.

I knew what this was, this coin.  I’d been laying on a pile of them just a couple of days ago.

My throat constricted.  I clutched the wet handle of the cooking pot.  I looked up and right into Tsuberov’s narrowed eyes.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, boy,” he murmured.


	8. Chapter 8

Everyone was watching our exchange.  Father Maxwell was very quiet and I knew something horrible was coming.  Something he couldn’t figure out how to divert from me or protect me from.

My heart leaped up into my throat.  I couldn’t have said a word even if I’d wanted to.

Septum, the second lieutenant, spoke up, “The fruit was excellent.  Rare.  Only found deep in the jungle.”  His hand drifted down to his belt and rested upon the coiled bullwhip there.  I’d noticed it before, had assumed he used it for peacekeeping and corporeal punishments, but as I studied the hard light in his eyes, I suspected another purpose.

I thought of the scars on Trowa’s back and clenched my teeth together so tightly they creaked under the pressure.

“What else have you found during your explorations other than fruit and flowers?” Quinze wanted to know.

Tsuberov grinned and held up the coin.  “Something like this?”

“In—in the jungle?” I rasped, my voice cracking.  I took all my confusion and pushed it past my rage and fear and did my best to look like a village idiot.  “Why would there be something like that in the jungle?”

“Ah, so you do know what this is,” Tsuberov remarked.

I shrugged.  “My eyesight is just fine.”

“And how’s your sense of direction?” Quinze challenged.

I resisted looking toward Father Maxwell.  He was probably more confused than I was and I didn’t want to imply that he knew anything about my adventures, which he didn’t.

“I don’t understand,” I finally admitted.

Mueller laughed.  “Not very bright, is this one?”

I bowed my head.  “I’m just a scribe.”

“One that’s been quite busy,” Quinze approved and picked up a sheet of paper from the desk that I still hadn’t found time to haul back into the hut.

“Trowa,” he read aloud with a slight frown and my blood ran cold.  I met his gaze without flinching as he continued down the list of words I’d taught my lover yesterday morning.  “Duo – that’s you, if I’m not mistaken – Father Maxwell… yes, no, stop, hurt, stay, today, tonight, tomorrow, noon, please, thank you, sorry, cat, friend, home, food—”

I was holding my breath, panicking in silence.  I knew what he was going to read next. 

And with a fat, satisfied smile, he did: “Gold.”

What had I done?  I was so stupid.  So fucking stupid.

I couldn’t think of a single explanation, a single diversion, a single way out of the corner I’d backed myself into.  All I could think was that I would rather die before these bastards realized that Trowa was a real person and not just a nonsensical scribble on a page.

“Tell us about the last item on your list,” Tsuberov invited.

I obliged.  “It’s a rare and valuable metal used for jewelry and coinage—”

Alex lunged forward.  I ducked under his swinging arm and then quickly spun away from Mueller when he stepped into my path.  I backed toward Father Maxwell, the pot still clutched in my hand.  My only pathetic weapon.  But I was going to have no qualms about using it if I had to.  Still, these odds were not the best I’ve ever had.

“We’ll split it with you,” Tsuberov lied smoothly.  “Just tell us where it is.”

“I don’t know where any gold is,” I answered truthfully.  I honestly wasn’t sure I’d be able to find the ruins without Trowa’s help or a troupe of shirt-stealing monkeys to chase.

“We’ll see about that.”  Tsuberov nodded to his grunts and they swarmed over the outpost, turning over our cots, tumbling Father Maxwell’s photography equipment to the ground, kicking our belongings across the dirt floor, rifling through books and illustrations.  I knew they wouldn’t find anything.  There was nothing to find.  Because Trowa had made me toss the single gold coin I’d taken back into the ancient vault from whence it’d come.

I understood now what he’d meant when he’d rasped in a voice strangled by fear, _“Gold hurt Duo.”_

God have an-ounce-of-fucking mercy.

I was in such deep shit.

Tsuberov frowned at me when the search yielded nothing.  He frowned, but he hadn’t given up.  “Where did you hide it, boy?”

“I haven’t hidden anything!”  Though, I was hiding _someone._

“Don’t be stupid,” Quinze bit out impatiently, “or you’ll end up like the last boy.”

“The last boy?” I echoed, fury and hate and rage roaring to life with breath-taking speed in my guts.

Septum tapped the bullwhip fondly.  “His body’s never been found.”

Fucking bastards!  The snarl was just on the other side of my teeth, but I clamped it down and lashed it to my heart.

“Where did you see gold, boy?”

I knew that if I continued to deny it, Septum would unhook that bullwhip.  But I knew that if I admitted to it, they’d expect me to lead them there and if I couldn’t remember the path I’d taken, then they’d suspect that someone had shown me the way – the “Trowa” on my stupid list which was just meaningless babble to them now would become the focus of their search.

I couldn’t let that happen.  I just couldn’t.

I glanced down at the coin Tsuberov was turning over and over in his hand.  “I’ve only seen the one,” I answered.  It was true, in a sense.  I had seen only one gold coin _in the jungle._  And, I hadn’t _seen_ any of the others.  I’d only felt them.

Tsuberov turned to Father Maxwell.  “I imagine you normally deal with liars by offering them absolution.”

“If they’ve truly sinned, aye,” he admitted stiffly.  “Ye’ve no evidence that the lad kens aught about any gold.”

“We will.”  Tsuberov gestured Septum forward.

“Whipping me won’t change the truth,” I bit out, bracing myself.

Septum grinned.  “What makes you think it’s you who’s going to be bloody?”  He tilted his head to the side.  “After all, you’ll need to be able to walk, won’t you?”

I placed myself between him and Father Maxwell, but I wasn’t an idiot.  There were God damned fourteen of them.

There were fourteen of them and not only had Septum, Tsuberov, and Quinze – perhaps a few others – once whipped a little boy so badly that, years later, he still had the scars across his back – a little boy who’d escaped to the jungle, so terrified of being found that he’d stayed there until everyone assumed he was dead – not only had these sons of bitches done that, but I was starting to suspect that the fever that had supposedly killed the outpost’s inhabitants over ten years ago had had nothing whatsoever to do with any disease transmitted by an insect.  Trowa’s family might be dead for one reason and one reason only: gold fever.

“Don’t touch him,” I ordered with as much calm as I could summon.

Father Maxwell laid a hand on my shoulder but I shrugged it off.  I was not going to let him convince me that it was fucking all right if these thugs wanted to strip the flesh off of his back.  A whipping would kill him.  The open wounds.  The infection.  The fever.  Old men had succumbed to less.

There was nothing I could do or say to convince these men that I didn’t know where the gold was.  All I could do was stall for time and hope I’d come up with something.

“Dawn tomorrow,” I ground out.  “I’ll take you into the jungle.”

“You’ll take us to the gold,” Quinze insisted.

“Tomorrow.  Gold,” I summarized.  I was sure I sounded like a moron, but I knew there was one person who would understand me completely if he was listening and watching nearby.

I prayed Trowa would let me handle this.  I prayed that he’d heard my warning and would stay the hell out of the way.  I prayed even though, to my knowledge, not a single one had ever been answered.

Quinze motioned Alex and Mueller forward.  I seethed at the sight of the shackles they produced.  Father Maxwell put his hand on my shoulder and curled his fingers so tightly into my jacket that it’d be damn near impossible to dislodge it.

“Let it be, lad,” he counselled and it went against every single solitary instinct I had to let the pot drop to the ground.  They fixed the metal cuffs around my ankles and I glared at the short length of chain that connected my feet.

“It’s unfortunate we have to use these,” Tsuberov said, but he didn’t sound very damned sorry.  “We can’t have either of you wandering off and getting lost.  The jungle’s no place for a couple of priests at night.”

I had nothing to say to that.  Nothing that would help Father Maxwell and myself in any case.  But the biggest reason for keeping my mouth shut was the terror that if I started shouting at them, I wouldn’t be able to stop and I’d threaten them, taunt them, alert them to the fact that the father and I had an ally.

That there was one more person they could use against me.  Or me against him.

As true night fell, the soldiers moved into the shanties to sleep.  Father Maxwell shuffled around the corner of our hut to relieve himself.  When he returned, he nudged me in the same direction and I stumbled my way over there.

“Hey!” someone called.  “Stay where we can see you.”

I waved over my shoulder to show that I’d heard the order.  I didn’t turn the corner; I leaned my shoulder against the worn spot where two walls came together and reached for my trouser fastenings.

“Duo.”  It was my name on the barest whisper.

I bit back a gasp.  I looked up and there he was, rising from a crouch in the darkness and moving into the backwash of flickering firelight.

“Trowa, no!” I hissed.  “No.  You can’t be here.  You have to go.  D’you hear me?  Go.   Go to Trowa’s home and _stay!”_

He cupped my face in his hands and said one word, “No.”

His lips brushed mine and I gripped the wall beneath my hand tighter.  His kiss was everything I ever wanted.  I felt the hot rush of tears crest up my throat and push at my eyes.

He told me firmly, “Duo and Trowa.”

“Please,” I implored.  “Go.  Men – these men – hurt Trowa.”  My fingers slid over his scars.  “Please go.”

He shook his head.  My pleas had no effect on the hard gleam in his eye.  “Lovers,” he reminded me and I knew he would willingly die to protect me.  It took everything I had not to scream at him, not to let the tears of rage and helplessness stream from my eyes, not to curl into a terrified ball of little boy.

“Hey, little preacher man!” a gruff voice boomed from near the campfire.  “You fall asleep on your feet or what?”

I jerked at the call and shot back, “Do _you_ enjoy relieving yourself to an audience?”

There was a chuckle.  “Get used to it.”

I huffed and turned back around.

Trowa was gone.

He was gone and I was shaking with fear at what tomorrow would bring.  I took care of my bladder – thankfully it was one of the few things I could still control.  Though, if Trowa did something stupid, all bets were off.

The guard split up for the night.  The biggest assholes claimed our shanty for themselves.  Tsuberov took Father Maxwell’s cot and Quize laid his nasty hide down on mine.  Septum, Alex, and Mueller positioned their camp rolls on the floor.  Father Maxwell and I were sat down against a bare wall and told to stay put.  Given our still shackled feet and the fortified ring they’d formed around us, it would be impossible for us to try and escape.  Especially when it became clear that Septum was taking the first watch.

They turned down the oil lamp, but I knew at least one of them would be staying up to keep an eye on us the whole damned night.  I desperately wanted to apologize to Father Maxwell – it was my own fault we were in this mess at all – but what could I say that wouldn’t incriminate me or reveal Trowa?  I put an arm around the father’s shoulders and drew him close so he could lean on me and try to get some rest.  He looked older and more tired than I’d ever seen him.

I dozed a bit, but couldn’t achieve true sleep.  My brain was still whirling, spinning in useless circles over the threat we were facing.  Not for a minute did I think these greedy bastards would just fill their pockets with gold coins, thank us very much, and be on their merry way.  No, if I managed to find the ruins, they’d have no more need for either Father Maxwell or myself.  We were breathing on borrowed time.

It was so damned unfair.  Father Maxwell was finally making the academic pilgrimage he’d been dreaming of for decades and I’d miraculously found someone who healed up the rough and raw places in my soul, and now _this._

I squeezed my eyes shut and let the fury fill me in silence.

I came awake with a start.  It was just past dawn.  I could see the pale, weak light through the cracks in the shutters.  The shutter.  The broken lock.  It hadn’t occurred to me until this moment that Trowa might have come in that way during the night.

“Morning, sunshine,” Alex drawled, absently cleaning his fingernails with the tip of his service knife.

I ignored him.  I was busy being thankful that Trowa hadn’t been stupid enough to try to rescue us with a guard on duty at all times.

I listened to Father Maxwell snore against my shoulder and then I heard the sound of running footsteps.  Alex was already on his feet when someone pounded on the door.

Mueller rolled over and scowled as his comrade threw the portal open.  “What the hell is it?”

“They’re dead!  They’re _all_ dead.”

“What?”

Septum’s eyes snapped open.  Quinze sat up.  Tsuberov rolled to his feet.  “You three, stay here.”

The captain and his first lieutenant headed outside to address the shaken soldier.  Mueller opened the shutter facing the center of the outpost and I could hear their voices rising in argument.

“LeFont, Dubinski, Herrington, Fitz – they’re dead.  Throats slit in the night!”

“What happened?” I heard Quinze demand.

“How would I know?  I didn’t kill them!”

“No?” said the owner of a fourth voice.  “Then who did?  The truth is, sir, that this sorry bastard killed ‘em along with Hastings, Williams, and Nobokov – and he’s standing here trying to blame it all on me!”

“You son of a—!”

“Shut up, the both of you!”

Both.  There were two soldiers out there with Tsuberov and Quinze and they seemed to be blaming each other for the murders of their comrades.  Seven of the guard were dead.  Sometime in the night, someone as silent as the darkness itself had done that.  Someone with a very sharp – or newly sharpened – knife.

_Trowa._

He’d killed those men, but he’d left two alive to both divert attention away from himself and cast the blame on each other.  With shares of gold on the line, it stood to reason that the guard would immediately suspect one of their own.  Someone motivated to eliminate as many hands as possible for a bigger pay out.

Holy Host of Heaven, Trowa was fucking brilliant.

And a killer.

But, then again, so was I.

Back alley London knife fights didn’t end with a slap on the back and a handshake, after all.  In a world where life expectancy could be optimistically forecasted into one’s teens, you did whatever you had to do in order to protect yourself and the kids who had your back.  Even if it meant killing someone else.  Especially if it meant killing someone else.

I was never going to feel good about what I’d done to ensure my survival, but I’d never asked for forgiveness for it, either.  The world had made my actions a necessity.  And if I hadn’t done it, then someone else would have died.  A life would have been taken nonetheless.

I could feel the familiar blackness – the rage and horror at what I was capable of – creeping over me.  Father Maxwell and Sister Hélène had once asked a much younger Duo if he believed in God and I’d answered, “I reckon there’s a god of death ‘cause I seen lotsa dead people.”

I’d killed many of them myself.

If given half a chance, I was sure I could do it again.  I would.  I was not going to let Trowa be the only one with blood on his hands.

Fingers wrapped around my upper arm and shook me.  Hard.

I hissed, turning with teeth bared and a snarl crawling up my throat.

Father Maxwell’s drawn features stayed the bloodlust.  The compassion and concern in his eyes tugged at me, shifted aside the killer, and I was just a young man in a grungy, slept-in seminary uniform again.  Though it was clear he could see that that wasn’t all I was.

But he couldn’t speak to me without drawing the attention of Septum, Alex, and Mueller.  All three of them were focused on what was happening outside.  Or what had already happened.

The force of our enemies had been halved.  Suddenly, the odds didn’t look so bad.  I’d still have to wait for things to shift to my advantage, but I knew what kind of men these former soldiers were.  They weren’t all that different from the thugs of London’s streets and I’d already survived them.

I could do this.  I just needed to pick the battle ground.

I thought of the ruins, of the gold hidden behind crumbling walls and collapsing ceilings.  An easy place to fall.  To break an arm or a leg.  With a well-placed gash, a man could bleed to death and his body disappear into the jungle.

Yes, it was time to fight.

I was ready.


	9. Chapter 9

“Leave the bodies,” I heard Tsuberov order.  “Empty their packs and let’s move out.”

Septum turned toward us, gesturing for me and Father Maxwell to get up.  Every part of my body ached from sitting on the hard floor and leaning back against the rough wall.  I could only imagine how much pain the father was in.  I pulled both of us to our knees where I waited for his old bones and joints to adjust.  Then I lurched to my feet and held onto his arms, pulling when he nodded that he was ready to stand.

“Get us something to eat,” Septum ordered Alex and Mueller.  Father Maxwell and I watched as they raided our emergency supplies: dried and salted fish from Lagos, hard tack cakes, strips of jerky, nuts, dried fruit… everything we had with the exception of the sacks of grain for porridge disappeared into their packs.

Obviously, nobody cared about leaving anything behind for the father and myself.  I’d already expected as much, but when they tossed a pair of canvas packs at us, I had no doubt as to what they were planning: after we reached the ruins, they’d use us to help haul their gold, then they’d kill us.  That was why Tsuberov wasn’t bothering with the bodies of his men.  Why bury or burn them now when you’ll be adding two more by dusk?

We stepped outside and Tsuberov ordered our shackles removed.  Then we were permitted to empty our bladders.  His men assembled themselves, though I noticed the two accused murderers refused to present their backs to each other and ended up standing side by side at a wary distance.

“Well?  It’s dawn,” Quinze pointed out.

Without a word, I pivoted toward the jungle and ducked into the gloom.

Over the past few days, I’d gained some familiarity with the trails that Trowa had used.  I hated to bring these men here – this was Trowa’s world and it was his right to feel safe here insofar as a jungle would allow for such a thing – but I couldn’t afford to get us lost.  Septum still had that bullwhip, after all.

I paused several times, making a show of carefully considering our path.  I was still familiar with the area we were in, but the father needed the rest.  Climbing over fallen logs and ducking under branches had to be taking its toll on his back and knees.

The last place I wanted to bring these assholes was the pool where Trowa and I had washed and loved each other, but it was the only landmark I was completely certain of.  Tsuberov allowed his men a break and I was told to climb up and get some fresh fruit.

The soldiers ate.  Father Maxwell and I were permitted a single hard tack biscuit each and the bruised, over ripe fruit.

“Now where?” Quinze demanded.

Again, I said nothing as I pushed through the underbrush and searched for the trail.  There appeared to be three branching off from this point and I felt a real sense of fear.

I also felt eyes on me.  Someone watching me from deep in the jungle.  Trowa.

Would he have left me a sign?

I looked for it and, yes.  Right there.  In the center of the right-most trail.  A single bare footprint pressed into a patch of dirt that had been deliberately turned over.  I was careful to stomp it out before the rest of our jolly crew crashed through the foliage to join me.

More than once, the trail branched and at each spot, Trowa had left another marker, more subtle than the first, but clear now that I was looking for them.  Each time, I’d scuff to a stop, standing right on the impression he’d left in the patch of earth, and take my time contemplating our options.  I’d look up.  I’d lift away leaves and fronds.  Then I’d find something I supposedly recognized.

“This way,” I said time and time again, and we moved on to the next fork in the path.

Father Maxwell was growing more and more exhausted with every turn until I had to affect confusion and frustration at greater lengths of time.

“Boy—” Quinze growled as I dithered.

“For the love of God—” Or, in their case, _gold._  “—don’t rush me!” I whined, tunneling my fingers into my hair and tugging at the roots in frustration.  And I really was frustrated.  I was using up their patience faster than Father Maxwell was recovering.

I chose the path that Trowa had indicated and wandered down it, going slowly as if I still wasn’t certain that this was the right way.

But it was.

I pushed aside the massive fronds blocking the path ahead and there it was.  The ruins.  We were standing on the floor of the ravine and the sun was directly overhead, illuminating the ancient walls and awesome trees.  I lunged into the clearing and stepped to the side, ready to catch Father Maxwell when he nearly fell through the underbrush.  He gripped my shoulders harder than he probably intended to and I could hear the suffering in each of his pained breaths.

Jesus Christ.  Assuming I could get us both out of this situation alive, how in the hell was I gonna haul his bony, old ass back to the outpost?

A question for later.  Assuming there was a later.

I turned my attention to the building that was slowly grinding to dust under the weight of time and neglect.  Trowa had brought me this way as we’d left, so I knew where we were in relation to the vault, but I hadn’t been able to appreciate the grandeur of it in the gathering shadows of that late afternoon.  Now the white stone was shining like a ship’s beacon.  How could the whole damned world not see this light?

The jungle likes its secrets, apparently.  And guards them jealously.

“We’ve got to climb up,” I said before either Quinze or Tsuberov could demand that I speak.  I was getting tired of barking on command like I was the poodle in some kind of trained dog routine.  “Just let the father sit and wait here for us.”

Tsuberov glanced at Alex and with a nod of his head, the shackles reappeared.

Father Maxwell gestured for me to lead him to a tumbled block of stone that would soon be in the shade.  I helped him sit, wincing in sympathy at his obvious agony.  Alex slapped on the shackles and grabbed my jacket sleeve, hauling me over to where everyone was waiting.  I dug my heels in and shook myself loose.

“Your boy here doesn’t speak, captain?” I jeered, echoing Alex’s very words the evening before.

“He speaks.  He also bites, so mind yourself, boy.”

Alex’s grin fully expressed how much he enjoyed the latter.

With a glare, I brushed past him and stepped through the massive arch that had once been an entrance.  The space beyond was a kind of yard – there was no ceiling to speak of.  But there was a set of eroded stairs carved into the far wall.  Trowa had insisted we not use them.  In fact, he’d avoided this whole wall altogether.  I could only hope that was because it was unstable.

I lifted my foot, preparing to take one hell of a gamble – but it’d be worth it if I could take out even one of these bastards – when Tsuberov grabbed my arm and motioned for the two accused murders to go first.

“What the—?” I protested.  It was my knee-jerk reaction but it played well, making Tsuberov think that I wanted to set foot on that death-trap, which only made him more determined to send his own men up first.

I subsided unhappily as they began the ascent.  Both men leaned against the wall, digging the heels of their boots into what little remained of each step.  They hadn’t quite made it halfway up with I heard it: the powdery crunch of weakening stone under a boot heel.  They froze, and it was the wrong decision.

The step crumbled beneath one man’s foot and a fissure raced up the looming wall.  I stumbled back, bumping against Tsuberov and Quinze as they sought a safe distance.

And then there was a loud _crack!_

An incoherent shout.

A _crash!_ and a cloud of white dust.

I pressed my arm over my eyes and tried to breathe through the weave of my jacket.

For a long minute, everything was silent.

And then I heard Father Maxwell calling, “Duo?  Duo!  DUO!”

I lowered my arm and promptly coughed.  “Fine!” I wheezed.  “I’m fine!”  But when I got a good look at the fallen wall, all I could say was, “My God…”  _Thank you.  Praise you.  I owe you one.  Or two._

There was no evidence that the soldiers had ever been there at all.  The entire wall had fallen in and burst into a jumble of huge, jagged stones.  There was no way either of them could have survived that.

Quinze rounded on me, “You!  You knew that wall was unstable!”

I held up my hands in petition.  “What!?  That would have been me if your captain hadn’t held me back!”

Tsuberov reluctantly nodded at Quinze’s disbelieving look.

Septum turned away from the sight of the destruction with a shrug.  Alex and Mueller shared a grin.  Not a one of them was sorry to have two fewer partners to deal with.  However, it would make hauling the gold out a lot more work and I assumed that was why Tsuberov and Quinze were looking so irked.

“Find another way up,” Quinze bit out.

“What’s wrong with this one?” Mueller wanted to know, climbing up on top of the heap of stone that had entombed their comrades.

When Mueller made it to the top of the wall without incident, Alex quickly followed.  Tsuberov, Quinze, and Septum resigned themselves to the awkward climb.  I couldn’t believe they found it distasteful to set foot upon the bodies of their fallen men.  There was no evidence that they valued human life beyond what they could gain from others.  What had them following the younger men’s lead was the fact that Alex and Mueller were just as cold-bloodedly opportunistic as they were but far more short-sighted: if they got a head start, they’d deal out the older men, take all the gold for themselves and to Hell with sharing the load on treacherous jungle trails.

Septum shoved me toward the collapsed wall and I began to climb, white dust clinging to my hands and covering my black clothing.

Alex kept close on my heels as I wove through the top level of the ruins.  I placed my feet precisely where Trowa had shown me.  In a matter of moments, I was standing beside the massive tree and the hole where the wall and recessed ceiling had crumbled beneath me.  Mutely, I pointed and then I shrank back against the tree in an attempt to stay out of their way.

Septum and Alex rigged a length of rope and a pulley system to the largest bough and I watched as, following a direct order from Tsuberov, Mueller went down first, descending the same way I’d climbed out.

I didn’t think any of them breathed as they listened, waiting.  When Mueller jumped down off of the leaning pillar, it was obvious that he’d made the same discovery I had.  His boots kicked the coins and the sound of tumbling metal rose up like the music of a golden harp beckoning guests into the pits of Hell.

Quinze didn’t have to wait for Mueller to confirm his find.  The man was already yanking up the rope to guide himself down.  Tsuberov followed.  And then Septum, who – as he began his descent – ordered Alex, “Watch him.  If he moves, kill him.”

Well, shit.  I guess that meant they hadn’t forgotten about me after all.

Alex turned his attention toward me and grinned.  “Yes, sir.”

I didn’t ask if I could sit.  Alex was just waiting for an excuse to gut me.

“How much is down here?” Mueller asked.

Tsuberov estimated, “More than we can carry back with us today.”

“Or tomorrow or the day after!” Quinze crowed.

Someone started methodically stacking coins.  Probably Septum.

The others followed his example and Alex reached out to drag the empty canvas pack off of my back.  “I’m sending down two more packs!” he called, his eyes glossy with greed.

Before he could toss them into the chasm, I heard a thud and clatter – the sound of a body falling back against the golden coins. 

A horrified scream that turned into a gurgle.  Air bubbling up through thick liquid.  A death rattle.

“Jesus Christ!” Mueller shouted and a gunshot shook the stone beneath my feet.

“What’s happening!” Alex called, leaning close to the edge.

“Get me the fuck out of here!  Now!”

Alex reached for the rope and the instant his hands were busy, so were mine.  I leaped up and caught the highest branch that I could reach and then swung myself forward and kicked the bastard as hard as I could.  The toe of my boot caught him under the chin and his head snapped back.  He fell with a skull-cracking _smack!_ against the stone.  I swung myself one more time and let go.  As I landed, my boot smashed into his throat.  I heard bone break and blood squirted from his mouth and nose, splattering my boot and trouser leg.

Now _that_ had been worth the wait.

“Alex?  Alex!” Mueller called frantically.  I could hear him scrambling up the pillar, the tread of his boots sliding uselessly against the stone.

I grabbed Alex’s knife, ready to use it the instant the son of a bitch showed his face.

But then Mueller fell back, landing with a frightened cry.  I heard the low, ominous growl of a very large jungle cat and I knew what that meant.  It meant that Trowa and Cat were down there, fighting in the darkness to save my life and Father Maxwell’s.

Knife blade between my clenched teeth, I descended the roots as fast as I could.  Using the ropes, I swung myself down onto the pillar and slipped into the darkness.  I could hear Mueller close by as he squared off, then pivoted sharply, convinced that the enemy was closing in from behind.  I ducked under the leaning pillar and found myself standing very, very close to the man.  I could hear his shallow breaths and smell his rancid sweat.  My eyes adjusted to the gloom and faint glow provided by the midday sun overhead.  He spun around again and suddenly he fell back and I heard Cat’s growls.  Claws tearing at fabric.

Mueller was screaming and thrashing.  The hand closest to me knocked against my shoulder – but it wasn’t just a hand.  I grabbed for it, throwing all my weight into keeping Mueller’s hand and the gun in his grasp pointed away from Cat.

_BANG!_

In the brief glow of the gunshot, I saw Trowa over Cat’s heaving shoulders, holding the man’s knife arm down against the gold.  Hot blood sprayed across my jacket.  She’d torn open the man’s neck.  An instant later, the arm in my grasp went limp.

In the deathly hush that followed Mueller’s futile struggles, I heard footsteps on the listing stone pillar.

Swinging around, I spotted Septum charging toward the sunlight, pulling himself up with the aid of the ropes.

I sprinted after him.

Trowa was faster.  He charged up the pillar while I was still trying to tug my boots off, but pry them off I did.  As well as what felt like a layer of skin.

As Septum reached the root system, he kicked back and his foot caught my lover in the shoulder.  Trowa hissed as he lost his balance and tumbled to the coin-strewn floor.

My eyes narrowed.  I focused on my quarry.

_My turn, you son of a bitch._

I raced up the pillar and climbed the tangle of roots.  I felt no pain, no exhaustion, no burn of overused muscles – only rage and fury and bloodlust.  Septum was just pulling himself onto the roof – was that much closer to getting away with what he’d done to Trowa years ago, that much nearer to reaching Father Maxwell and killing him – when I lunged wildly and without a single handhold to guide me.  I spat out the knife I’d taken from Alex, clutched it like a lifeline, swung with all my strength, and stabbed Septum in the thigh.

He roared with pain and my weight dragged him down.

He fell.

He landed.

And in the silence that followed, I clung to the edge of the roof, my wheezing breaths burning my throat and lungs.  A furry body leaped past me – Cat.  And then an arm hooked under my knee and a shoulder boosted my sorry ass up.  I wiggled and clawed my way to a stable perch and then I reached back for Trowa and hauled him up.  I fell backwards and he braced himself on his elbows on top of me.  I reached for him and just thanked God.

“Are you hurt?  Trowa?”

He shook his head.

I pressed, “Cat?  Is Cat hurt?”

The creature in question gave us a derisive sniff, licked her bloody chops, and stepped over us.  I saw the tip of her tail flick once as she rounded the trunk of the tree and disappeared.  Evidently, she was done with us both.

That was fine.  It was more than fine.  It was great.

I wiggled until I was sitting up and Trowa moved with me.  Our foreheads bumped and the roots of the tree were unkind to my aching-twitching-throbbing legs.  Suddenly, Trowa’s hands were framing my face.  He looked furious and beautiful and frightened and needy and—

“Duo…!” he snarled and I could hear every damn thing he was feeling in that one utterance.

I gripped the nape of his neck hard and growled back, “Trowa!”

And then I kissed him.  I kissed him and bit him and licked him and loved him and—

I loved him.

Just that.  I loved him.


	10. Chapter 10

I was still going to kick his ass for taking so many risks, for risking Cat’s life, for risking _his_ life—!

Trowa grabbed my shoulders and I grabbed his head and here we were lying in a pile on a tangle of roots on the verge of brawling over who was the bigger idiot.

And then he just stopped.  Stopped curling his fingers into my flesh, stopped gritting his teeth, stopped being angry altogether.  He sighed, “Duo.”

At his capitulation, the fight evaporated out of me and I leaned my forehead against his.  “Trowa.”  I petted his back and he crawled into the embrace, his lips seeking out mine and we kissed with a need that made us cling to each other without fingernails, made us burrow closer without scratching or tearing.  We wrapped ourselves up in each other and just held on with lips and skin.  They were stronger than any bone or claw or tooth could ever be because they were soft, because they merged, because they fit together seamlessly.

Trowa and I, we were seamless.

I wrapped one arm around his shoulders and tilted my head against his.  My other hand reached for his neck and my fingertips traced the path down the center of his chest in the very same gesture that he’d used to illustrate the one word that would define us.  No matter what else we might be, we were lovers.

He kissed me once more and then reached behind him and held up my clearly-not-abandoned boots, shoelaces neatly tied together.

Goddamn it.  He was too fucking perfect.  I bit my lip instead of yelling at him over it like a moron and just got on with shaking out my boots and sticking my feet in them.

He held out his hands and we stood up together.  I went through Alex’s pockets, transferred the food in his pack to mine, and I was ready.  Slowly, tiredly, we made our way back to the arch where Father Maxwell was still waiting.  I wanted to sit down and die at the thought of the long trek ahead of us, but I knew I couldn’t.  Wouldn’t.  The father needed my help.

“Duo!” he called, worry making his voice sharp enough to carve bone.

I didn’t so much kneel as fall down on my knees at his feet.  I dug the key to the shackles out of my pack and wrestled the things off of Father Maxwell’s feet.

“Are you all right, lad?”

I nodded.  “Yeah, I’m just really tired.”  It was then that I looked at myself.  Really looked at myself.  My black jacket and trousers were still dusted with white stone dust.  On top of that was blood.  Alex’s.  Mueller’s.  Septum’s.

I looked at my hands.  I looked at Trowa’s hands.  The blood on mine was a mirror reflection of the gore on his.  I watched him absently wipe the bloody blade of his knife on a small patch of moss.  So he had used it after all.  That was two for Cat, two for me, and one for Trowa?  Not counting the two buried under the rubble.  In any case, that was all of them.

He sensed my gaze and turned toward me and we shared a look that either meant nothing at all or everything all at once.

“What happened to the guard, Duo?” Father Maxwell asked and I answered him truthfully.

“They won’t be coming back with us.”

“Oh, lad.  What have you done?”

“Nothing I haven’t done before or wouldn’t do again,” I was exhausted enough to admit.  “You can lecture me later.”

And I was sure he would.

I passed around the water flask from Alex’s pack and then Trowa gestured for Father Maxwell to put his arm around his shoulders.  I moved to support the father on his other side.

As we made our way through the jungle, something I hadn’t been able to ask before cycled back through my thoughts and this time there was no reason for me not to blurt it out.

“So, I gotta ask.  How come they didn’t figure out that Trowa was a name?  Y’know, when Quinze found that list of words?”  Which I still felt like the biggest twit on Earth for leaving lying out in the open where anyone could see it.

Father Maxwell smirked.  _Smirked._   “Ah.  I told him it was the name of our first discovery.  The Trowa Lily.  Inspired by the Hebrew language.”

“The Trowa Lily?” I snorted through a laugh.

The man in question looked back at us with an inquiring lift of his brows.

I wanted to explain, I really truly did.  But I was a bit busy trying to keep my tongue from snorting out my nose with all the sniggering I was doing.  “Lily.  Oh my fu—er, frankincense and myrrh.”

Father Maxwell palmed the back of my head and mussed my braid.  It was a light-hearted warning that I was toeing a line not to be crossed.  I gave him a crooked smile.

“No, really.  I’m impressed, father.  And the second set of handwriting?”

“Every scribe should be ambidextrous.”  He affected a casual shrug.  “You’ve been practicing.”

“That’s… completely brilliant.”

“I do have my moments.”

I spotted a lily peeping out from beneath the curve of a large leaf and called out, “Trowa, stop!”

He did and both he and Father Maxwell watched as I crouched down to pluck the blossom.  I presented it to Trowa with a flourish and I could only imagine how morbidly ridiculous this looked – here I was, wearing the black garb of a celibate man of God, covered with white dust and blood, offering a flower to my lover.  Was there anything about me that wasn’t hypocritical?

Trowa looked from the flower to my eyes and I didn’t hide my genuine smile.  He returned it and accepted the stolen gift, tucking the stem behind his ear and wearing the blossom with pride.

Well, maybe a Trowa Lily wasn’t quite as unbelievable as I’d assumed.

Father Maxwell was smiling softly when I ducked back under his arm.

We reached the pool by midafternoon and paused long enough to eat.  Trowa touched my shoulder and whispered, “Hunter.”

I grinned widely at the flower still drooping against his cheek and nodded.  “We – Duo and Father Maxwell – will stay here.”

“Where’s he gone?” Father Maxwell inquired after Trowa had shouldered his way through the undergrowth.

“To check the snares,” I replied.  “You want a bath?”

“In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, yes.”

I laughingly got him into the water.  I was laughing a lot this afternoon.  Either killing people who were out to end our lives made me euphoric or sanity was slipping through my fingers.  Still, I was allowed to be relieved, wasn’t I?  Trowa was safe.  Father Maxwell was safe.  Also, the men who had hurt my lover had gotten their comeuppance.  That was pretty damn terrific all by itself.

It was too bad we didn’t have any clean clothes for the father to change into, but I could tell that the bath had done wonders for his spirits.  And possibly his joints.  Trowa returned with a pair of tasty-looking furry critters, insect repellant was applied, and it was time to go.

Father Maxwell placed a hand on my shoulder, but didn’t really need the assistance. 

“We’ll have to bury them.  The ones at the outpost,” he told me quietly as we approached a section of trail that looked familiar.

I glanced up at the darkening sky.

“Tomorrow,” he added.

I nodded.  “How do you want to lay them to rest?”

“We’ll bury them in hallowed ground.”

I sighed.  Of course he’d want that.  God forbid that a bunch of assholes be denied a Christian burial and eternal rest.

“Duo,” he scolded me.  “It’s not for them.”

“Oh?  Who’s it for then?  I don’t think they’ll be missed in the Kingdom of Heaven.”

“And when _you_ stand before Saint Peter and he asks why you were so careless with seven immortal souls?”

“It’ll be the least of his concerns.  Trust me.  But yes, fine.  We’ll bury their worthless hides.”

Father Maxwell sighed.

A step ahead of us, Trowa stiffened.  He scanned the area, turning to me with narrowed eyes.

I noticed it, then, too.

The skin between my shoulders tightened.  Itched.

And then something big crashed through the underbrush behind me.  Trowa’s eyes widened as he grabbed for me and Father Maxwell, pulling us out of the way.  I glanced back and gaped.

Septum.  The son of a bitch was still alive.  Bloody and furious with murder in his eyes.

“Get down,” I hissed at Father Maxwell, pushing him behind me as I moved to square off beside Trowa.  Two against one.  This should be over quickly.  It would have been if not for the gun.

Septum lifted the muzzle, sighting and aligning the chambered bullet with my lover’s heart.

I lunged – was close enough and fast enough to draw his attention, causing him to swing the barrel in my direction.

_BANG!_

Somehow, the bullet didn’t find me.  It vanished into the jungle and I was still moving forward, grabbing onto the bastard’s sleeve and bodily wrapping myself around his arm.  Dragging the barrel of the gun down.  I kicked at his field-dressed thigh.  Wrested that detestable weapon from his grasp.  It clattered off into the distance, swallowed up by the deepening shadows.

Septum tumbled backward when something slammed into him – Trowa – and I spun toward a particularly thick tangle of roots.  My head hit something – the trunk of a tree – and for a moment I was dazed.  I shook myself, nearly blacked out, and then willed the sight back into my eyes.  Trowa had squared off with Septum.  My lover had nothing but the small knife in his hand and the brute was sneering at him with a much larger knife clenched in one fist and the bullwhip in the other.

Oh, fuck _no._

The whole jungle seemed to hold its breath.

And then a breeze rustled the canopy above, sending splatters of golden sunlight into unlikely crevasses.  One of them winked back at me.  I reached in between the tangle of roots and my fingers curled around the familiar handle of my no-longer lost hunting knife.

Trowa crouched.

Septum tightened his grip on the woven leather handle of his primary weapon.

“I remember you,” Septum told Trowa.  “You were a screamer.”

I gritted my teeth and slowly – so slowly – gathered my legs under me.  I’d probably only have one shot.  I had to make it count.

Septum sneered, “Your sister certainly was.”

My stomach rolled.  I clenched my teeth.

“You should have told us where the gold was, boy.  She wouldn’t have had to suffer like you’re going to suffer.”

Trowa tried to move toward me, but Septum blocked his path, stepped between us, and this was the moment I’d been hoping for.  I gathered my strength and charged him, bringing the knife down and aiming for the monster’s throat.  I missed but the blade carved into his back, hitting his spine, and by then it was too late for Septum.

Over the man’s shoulder, I watched Trowa move – striking like a snake – and slashing the short blade across Septum’s throat.  Blood.  Blood sprayed Trowa’s face.  Blood from the wound on the man’s back gushed over my hands.

My only regret was that I hadn’t been able to whip the son of a bitch myself.  Hadn’t heard him beg for mercy.  Yes, my one regret was that we could only kill him once.

“Duo.”  Trowa’s hands slipped as they tried to pry my fingers off of the handle of the knife.  I was still clinging to it even though Septum had slumped to his knees.  The tide of blood had slowed.  He was dead or nearly.  Nothing would save him now but I needed to watch.

I grabbed the man’s oily hair and stared into his eyes until they were completely empty.

“Duo,” he said again, his blood-smeared hands closing around my arms.

“Death,” I taught him, needing to express the full horror of what I was.

He sank down to his knees and wrapped himself around me, pressed his chest to my back and his cheek to mine.  “Stop, Duo,” he breathed.  “Please.”

A hot shudder worked its way through my chilled flesh, rattling my bones.  Trowa’s voice.  His breath.  His warmth.  If I let go, he would be there.   _Here._   He was here.  Right now.

“Lover,” he said soft and low, “please.”

The knife handle slid from my grasp.  Septum’s body slumped to the jungle floor.  Trowa pressed closer to me and I realized I was shaking, trembling.  How could I possibly be a gentle lover, a ruthless killer, and a frightened little boy all at the same time?  How could I be all of these things?  How could the feel of Trowa’s arms around me possibly make sense of my fractured selves?

I didn’t know how, but they did.  He did.  He and I – we – did.

“Are you hurt?” I asked him for what felt like the hundredth time since we’d met, since he’d grabbed my hand in the darkness and showed me a path to safety.

“No,” he replied with a shake of his head and tugged me onto his lap, holding me so tightly I could barely breathe.

I held him just as tightly.  We held each other together.  It was the only way we could keep from falling apart.

Father Maxwell didn’t remark on our embrace.  As nightfall was imminent, he placed his hands on our shoulders and nudged us to our feet.  I retrieved and cleaned my knife.  Trowa did likewise.  We went home.  We washed the blood off of our skin.  I changed my clothes.  Trowa pulled me down onto my cot with him.

We slept.

When we woke, we ate.  We buried the dead.

“Would you like to make confession?” Father Maxwell asked me as I regarded the soil beneath my fingernails.

I tilted my head back and looked up at the sky.  It smelled like rain.

“I’m not going to seminary school,” I said.

“Aye, lad.  I ken.”

Yes, I imagined he did.  There was only one thing about the priesthood that had appealed to me: the lack of expectations upon my body.  People took comfort in a priest’s words; my body would only ever be my own.  I’d announced my intention to become a priest not from any kind of higher calling or deep faith, but out of fear.

I wasn’t afraid anymore.

I met the father’s gaze and told him my worst sin of all, “I’m not sorry for any of the rest of it.”

He blinked at me.  Waiting.

I blurted, “I love him.”

Father Maxwell smiled and shook his head.  “Loving someone isn’t a sin, lad.”

“But—”

“The commandments say, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’  And one day, you’ll make peace with that.  But there is nothing written in God’s _own hand_ that declares a man cannot hold another in his heart or his bed.”  He squeezed my shoulders.  “Priests and prophets are mortal, Duo.  Flawed.  But, love… love is divine.  There is no one on this Earth who has the right to judge that.”

I couldn’t speak.  I tried.  I honestly did.  But the tears were burning my throat, scalding my tongue, streaming from my eyes.

Father Maxwell patted my arm and went inside.  Trowa joined me where I stood.  I wrapped my arms around his waist and we both looked up at the sky.

And then it started to rain.

It rained for two days straight in a warm, balmy downpour.  I half expected it to taste like tears, but the air was too fresh and the jungle too green.  There were no pillars of salt left in the wake of my confession.

I could barely – just barely – believe that Father Maxwell honestly thought that what Trowa and I had wasn’t a sin.  That it was special.  Sacred.

I stopped wearing my seminary uniform.  I washed it in the rainwater and hung it inside the hut to dry.  Or molder.  I honestly no longer cared.  I dug out the set of clothing that Sister Helene had made for me just before our departure: a pair of dirt brown trousers and a blue vest that I buttoned over my flax shirt.

Trowa approved this change, offering a rumbling hum in comment as his fingertips touched the fabric of the vest before pushing the hair out of my eyes.

By this time, I’d taught him more English, enough for him to ask as he gestured to my abandoned jacket and trousers, “What means black?  Duo, stop black?”

“This black jacket and these black trousers,” I began, “are worn by a man who does not want a lover.”  I held out my hands as if pushing someone or something away, “No lover.  Only friends.”

He stared at me and both of us remembered when I had done exactly that – when I had pushed him away, when I’d told him we could be friends but not lovers.

“No black today,” he observed.

“No black tomorrow or the next day or the next day,” I promised, massaging the back of his neck.  I had no intention of ever wearing that uniform again.

He didn’t ask me why although he certainly could have.  He knew how.  He simply didn’t need to.


	11. Chapter 11

After more than a week of intermittent showers, it finally stopped raining long enough for the earth to become solid once more.

Trowa told me with skillful use of his ever-expanding vocabulary that his home would have to be repaired.  I imagined it was a sopping mess.  I wanted to help him get started on it, but there were the soldiers’ horses to deal with.  We didn’t have the grain to keep feeding all fourteen of them.

So Father Maxwell and I saddled them up and led them down the narrow, muddy track from our outpost to the crossroads.  The innkeeper was happy to take them once we explained that their riders had gone into the jungle and had yet to return to claim them.  We struck a bargain: the innkeeper would board them for two weeks and if the guard didn’t return for them, they would be his.

We traded for necessities on the credit we’d gotten from the arrangement – given all the food those assholes had squandered, they owed us this much at the very least – and then we made the trip back to the outpost, Farter flatulating the whole way.

“You’re not going to give those to Trowa?” Father Maxwell asked as I tucked away the bundle of clothing I’d just acquired.

I shrugged.  “They’re his if he wants them.”  I was pretty sure the trousers would fit him.  I was less confident about the jacket.  All I’d had to go by was the memory of my hands moving over his shoulders, around his chest, and along his arms.

“I noticed you also gave him a haircut.”

I nodded.

“Yet you’re not going to make a modern gentleman out of him?”

I snorted.  Trowa was more of a gentleman than all the knights of King Arthur’s damned round table combined.  “That’s not what he needs from me.”

“Right you are.”

Later that evening, I came back from checking on the mules and drawing water for the evening ablutions and found Trowa standing in the middle of the hut wearing the button-down dress shirt I’d just traded for.  He’d also put on the trousers and was fiddling with the fastenings, tightening them to his satisfaction.  The jacket and boots had been laid out as well.  Father Maxwell didn’t even try to look innocent.

“How come you were never this bad at keeping Christmas presents from me?” I demanded irritably.

“That was Sister Hélène’s doing.”

“Of course it was.”  I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Duo,” Trowa said quietly.  “This is no good?”

I dropped my genuine frustration at the father’s meddling and crossed the room to take Trowa’s face in my hands.  “You – Trowa – are good,” I said clearly.  I straightened his collar.  “This is good,” I allowed and then I bent to pick up his loincloth from where he’d placed it on the bench.  “This is also good.”  
Whatever he preferred was perfectly fine with me.

His smile lit the room.

Father Maxwell produced another bundle and handed it to me.  I stared at it.

“Mosquito netting,” I remarked flatly, not even sure what I was supposed to make of it.

“Not that I necessarily want you both to sleep elsewhere, but I’ve no desire to keep you here, tending house with an old man, if you’d rather be alone.”

This one gift – his acceptance of Trowa’s importance to me and vice versa – was more than I’d ever expected, anticipated, or hoped for.

I was crying a lot recently.  God damn it all.

It was damned tempting to haul Trowa out of the shanty and set up our own place.  Maybe at the edge of the jungle.  But I stayed the urge.  There was Cat to consider.  There was no way she’d deign to come into the outpost.  And besides, I wasn’t sure we should be teaching her that wandering around human settlements was a good idea.

And besides, Trowa’s nest had a very special place in my memory.

It took the better part of the next day to dry the grass bedding that could be salvaged.  I spread the mat out beside the nest and tied its corners to branches.  Then I laid neatly knotted bundles of not-dripping bedding out onto its surface to dry in the sunshine.  As I sat perched on the edge of the hollowed out nest with my feet braced against a bough, I realized that I wasn’t afraid of falling anymore.  It was still a helluva drop to the ground, but I was confident that the tree would hold me up.

I was more confident in general.  About a lot of things.

Trowa returned with his harvest.  He’d tied the bundles of grass and fragrant herbs in a long chain that dangled from a leather tie around his waist.  I watched as he climbed up to me and I held out my hand to welcome him home.

Airing out and restoring the nest was tough, but its completion was its own reward.  I lay back on its springy depths and breathed in its fresh scent, felt its coolness against my hands.  I imagined how wonderful it would feel if I were wearing nothing but a loincloth like Trowa’s.

And then a grey pelt was dangling in front of my face.  I looked up and Trowa was crouching over me, smiling.  He placed a hand on my vest and said, “This is good.”  He offered the pelt to me.  “This is also good.”  I grinned, anticipating his conclusion: he told me, “Duo is good.”

“Thank you,” I said, sitting up to kiss him, humming happily into his mouth, sliding my tongue along his and letting him sample the flavor of my joyous smile for himself.

Eager to try out my new wardrobe, I reached for the buttons on my vest but his hands were already there, gently and deftly nudging each through their buttonholes.  I held onto the loincloth as he unfastened my fastenings.  Then he peeled me out of my clothes and I handed him the loincloth so he could show me how to tie it on.

“What do you think?  Look good?” I asked, pulling myself up with the aid of a branch to give him a complete view.

His hands fisted on his thighs and he nodded once.  I recognized the hot look in his eyes.  Our positions echoed in my memory and it gave me an idea.  The perfect way to show him how I’d like to celebrate our new life and refurbished tree dwelling.

I tossed my head back, flexed my arms, and rolled my shoulders.  Clenched my chest, belly, and thighs.  My muscles still weren’t very impressive, but he didn’t complain.  Didn’t take his eyes off of me, either.  I glanced at him over my shoulder when I turned to present him with my back and tugged my braid over my shoulder.  When I completed the turn, he was still sitting there, staring at me.  Doing nothing.

The glossy-eyed, lustful gaping was rather nice, but not my ultimate goal for the evening.

My fingers moved to the leather tie at the side of the loincloth.

He tensed.

I smiled.

The pelt dropped to the nest and I stood before him completely naked.

His jaw unhinged – just the smallest increment – but I knew stupefied when I saw it.  As gratifying as it was, it didn’t really move things along.

I slid down onto my knees.  Reached forward on my hands.  I lowered my gaze and bent my head, crawling to him in supplication.

_Touch me,_ I said with my movements.  I rubbed my cheek against his thigh and rolled over so that I was draped across his lap.  It was killing me waiting for him to put his hands on me, but I forced myself to hold still, to keep my palms on his legs and knead the muscles gently.

He leaned over me and I mewled pleadingly.

Our lips touched and I could feel how hot and shallow his breathing was.  I shifted the smallest bit toward him and rubbed my bare hip against his arousal – already completely hard and pushing against his loincloth.

Then his tongue touched my lips and the breath burst out of me.  “Trowa.  Please,” I begged.

He framed my face with his hands and urged me up until I was straddling him, rubbing my cock against his through the deerskin and whimpering for more.  “Lover,” I invited and he accepted with a groan, wrapping his arms around me and lowering me to the nest.

I’d been right about the fresh grass – it felt amazing.

Trowa’s hot skin felt even better.

I wrapped my legs around his hips and grabbed his arms, levering myself up for a kiss.  My fingers curled as he did that damned purring thing deep in his throat, our lips brushing tantalizingly.  He shifted, one hand coming up to cradle my head and then his lips opened and he licked quickly, hotly at my mouth.  I whined for more, opened my eyes so he could see how badly I wanted him, this, us.

His green eyes were dark and deep.  He slanted his mouth over mine and I gave myself to each rocking movement of his mouth, each commanding surge of his tongue.  Yes, I wanted this – him – everywhere. When I reached for the tie on his loincloth, he didn’t stop me.  He released my lips to lick my throat and rub his hand up my chest, over my shoulder, and down my back.  I arched into him as the loincloth loosened and I yanked it away.

He growled when I rocked up into him and then stopped breathing entirely when I curled my fingers around his length, thrust up and against him, and fitted his cockhead to the one place I was determined it end up.

“Please, Trowa,” I whispered, mouth dry and heart hammering in my chest.

His moan was so deep and longing that I imagined it rocked the nest as it vibrated through his chest and into mine and across the bedding.  He leaned over me and I reached up to wipe away his tears.

“Ah, Duo,” he mouthed against my lips, his body trembling.  “I hurt you.”

“No,” I told him, “you won’t.”  I rubbed my hands up his back and he lowered himself over me with a groan, nuzzling my neck and pressing whiskery kisses to the skin over my racing pulse.  I tilted my head, surrendering to sensation, mirroring the trust he’d shown me that first morning when I’d either been too weak to resist him or brave enough to admit to my desires.  Or both.

His breath and lips and tongue roved down my chest and his hands rubbed my hips, anticipating and mimicking the rolling rhythm we’d soon be setting.  He rubbed his chin over my navel and I tensed at the feel of his beard – “Hmmm” – and my back arched at the hot contact of his tongue – “Ahh!” – and then he sealed his lips upon my skin and started to suck.

And I lost all coherent thought entirely.

Ah God – so hot – Jesus – Trowa was – his mouth was – fuck – doing this – holy – just my belly – how—!

I grabbed his hair, twisted my legs tightly around him and rocked my hips, sliding my cock against his chest.  He threaded his arms beneath my thighs, opening me further until my hard length and taut balls were pressed to his skin.

“Ahh!  Trowa!  Please,” I whined.

He lifted his mouth from my navel and I heard a wail of complaint.  I’d deal with the fact that it had come from my throat later.  At the moment, I was more concerned with the progression of events that had him hunching his shoulders, moving lower.  And then that incredible, unbelievable mouth was opening over my cock, tongue pressing flat against the base, and licking upward in one long hot swath that made me twitch and groan and sizzle with nearly-just-almost-there-completion.

“Again, Trowa.  Please, lover, please.”

He did.  Steaming heat followed in his wake.  Oh God I was so fucking close.

I didn’t have the breath to beg.  I was stretched taut on the ledge.  One tiny push was all it would take.  Just one more—

He licked me a third time, wrapped his hand around me, and it was happening.  I was thrusting into his touch, unstoppable, and the rush—oh fuck—oh please—just— _yes—!_

My head fell back and I drifted.  Like clouds drifted in the sky.  I wheezed, panted, moaned in the skin-tingling wake.

I almost couldn’t believe there could be something more than this, but I knew there was.  And I wanted it.

Trowa pressed slow, greedy kisses to the inside of my thighs.  I rolled my head toward him and reached for his hands, tracing the knuckles and veins with my fingertips.  “Trowa,” I reminded him.  “Please.”

He dragged two fingers through the seed pooled on my belly and I shifted, opened myself to his touch.  I couldn’t find an ounce of shame or embarrassment in me, and when he lifted one of my legs over his shoulder, pressing his cheek to the inside of my knee and giving me a look that could melt iron, I turned molten.

His touch was a surprise, and yet it wasn’t.  I’d been waiting my whole life for this moment, this bond, this person who I could give my trust to.  What surprised me was a single image: the thought of watching his cock disappear into my body made my entire being shudder with an overwhelming wave of heat.  I wanted that more than anything, so I let him work my muscles with relentless circles of his fingertips.  I rocked my hips, making every attempt to make this – us – happen.

He shifted and his hand returned to the mess on my stomach, sliding his fingers through it until they were slippery.  He whispered my name.  I grasped his shoulders.

“Yes,” I told him, gave him permission, and bit my lip at the feel of his touch – strange and sure – entering me and I was eager to see where this would lead, desperate to know how good it could be, sensing that I’d only begun to understand what it would mean to want-have-keep Trowa for my lover.

A hot tongue flicked at my cockhead and my chin snapped forward.  Trowa met my gaze as he took me into his mouth, as he pulled out and pressed against that ring of muscle with two fingers.  I bore down and he slid in, a surprised whine widening his eyes before they squeezed shut in abject bliss.  He was imagining what I would feel like around his cock, how tight and hot it would be.

I was just feeling him.  Learning that this didn’t have to hurt – didn’t hurt at all – that it could feel good and close and safe.  The massage rocked my entire body and I didn’t fight against it.  Didn’t want to.

Trowa tightened his lips around my cock and drew back with excruciating leisure and at that point I could not stand one more instant of not having him.

I shoved at his shoulders, surprised him, rolled him onto his back and straddled him.  My hand swiped at the remains of my seed and I grabbed his cock, coating him.  His breath caught in his throat and his hands grabbed my hips and it was just like the first time only I wasn’t as patient as he’d been.

I held him steady, pressed back against the head of his cock, and let him in.

Oh.

Oh, God.

Oh, Trowa.

I gasped at the feel of him as he pressed deeper and deeper.

His head was thrown back, his teeth clenched, every muscle standing out in relief as I continued my relentless descent.

“Duo,” he whimpered and I remembered that feeling.  I remembered that tingling rush of heat and need and instinct.

“Shh,” I soothed him.  “Stay.”

He bit his lip and mewled.  “How?  Ah, Duo, _how?”_

And then we were complete.  Connected.  I took a moment to just feel him, so fucking hard, and I wasn’t sure if it was his thrumming pulse or mine deep inside me that forced a moan up my throat.

I rocked my hips and he bit off a cry.  A tear squeezed out from the corner of his eye and I reached forward to brush it away.  “Are you hurt?” I asked.

He shook his head.  I rubbed his chest, reminding him to breathe.  When he did, I shifted again.  His fingers curled into my thighs and I knew he was fighting the impulse to snap his hips up as he yanked mine down.

“Hmm, Trowa,” I praised him, lifting one of his hands to my mouth and pressing kisses to his skin with every shallow motion of my hips.  I curled my hand around his, tucked both against my chest and leaned over him, stretching to reach his mouth.

Just as our lips brushed, his cockhead pressed against that place inside me and white-hot sensation rippled through me.

“Duo?” he gasped.  His hands were holding me up as I struggled to just breathe.

I rolled my hips and felt it again.

My eyes unfocused.  My jaw dropped.  I braced myself over him and moved once more, knowing I was about to lose my mind, and whispered, “Yes, lover, please.”

With a thin cry, his hips surged up and – AH! – he was – YES. – there with – OH FUCK. – every thrust and – SWEET JESUS! – it was – AGAIN. – indescribable – PLEASE! – to feel him – TOUCH ME! – inside so deep – WANT YOU. – and my whole being – MAKE ME – was wrapped around him – YOURS – and he was – MINE – and I was never – FOREVER – please – TROWA – just—!

His hand wrapped around my steaming, dripping cock and squeezed-pumped-took-gave—!

My scalp flushed.  My toes tingled.  My heart exploded.  Someone screamed.

I think I may have died.  For a moment.  Or longer.

I stirred, inhaled against the hot, sweaty skin beneath my cheek, and felt fingertips dancing up and down my spine.  I lifted my chin, blinked my eyes open and looked into Trowa’s at the same instant I realized he was still inside me.  No longer hard, but he didn’t need to be.  I just needed him to be with me.

Whatever that would mean in the days ahead.

His eyes were overflowing and I reached for the sleeve of my shift so I could wipe his tears away.  He grabbed the opposite sleeve and tended to mine.

“I hurt you?” he asked and I shook my head.

“You,” told him, “are good to me.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed.  I lowered my chest to his and pressed kisses upon his skin.  His fingers tunneled into my hair, warm against my scalp and he held on to me.

Just that. 

He held on. 

To me. 

Like I was precious.  Like I was worth killing for.  Like I was worth living for.

It took months before I could tell Trowa about my past, before he knew enough words to understand it.  All of it.  In wake of all that horror, he said only one thing: “You are my lover, Duo.”  And it was all the absolution I would ever need.

I was irrationally terrified that it would one day be taken from me.  So, once I’d summoned up the courage, I asked him why he’d chosen me.  Hadn’t he seen any girls before who he’d considered, er, y’know—?

He laughed.  “Duo, I saw girls.  Many girls.  Girls in baths in villages.  I did not want them.”  He brushed his thumb over my lips and his eyes darkened.  “I saw you.”

“And just about fell all over yourself, eh?”  I remembered that _snap!_ and rustle in the jungle on my first brief foray into its depths.  I knew Trowa well enough to know that he never made careless missteps.  Especially in his territory.  I shouldn’t have heard him in the first place, shouldn’t have suspected he’d been there at all.

My grin was as cocky as it was crooked, “I must’ve made a hell of an impression.”

He kissed me and that was more than enough confirmation.

Some weeks later, Trowa told me about his family – tortured and slaughtered by the guard who had discovered the single gold coin he and Cathy had found in the bottom of the pool – now _our_ pool – in the jungle.  Neither he nor his sister had known about the ruins.  It had only been much later that Trowa had found that forgotten place and even then he hadn’t known about the vault.  No, my little tumble that day and subsequent discovery had brought all those memories rushing back.  He tried to tell me, but I could only endure his broken, stuttering confession for so long.  I shushed him, pulled him closer, and I would have given anything for the chance to kill those bastards all over again.

But then Trowa told me about the mute, old, native man who’d carried a bleeding boy into the wilderness.  Trowa couldn’t remember the man’s name – maybe Trowa had never learned it – but he’d saved Trowa’s life.  Taught him how to hunt.  Taught him the secrets of the plants.  And when he’d died, he’d taught Trowa how to go on alone.

“You’re not alone anymore,” I vowed.  “Never again.”

Neither of us doubted that it was true.

Which was why, fourteen months later, Trowa and I dressed in our best clothes and traveled to Lagos to bid farewell to Father Maxwell and wish him well with his publications.

And also, to thank him.

“You and Sister Hélène saved my life,” I acknowledged.

“And now it is your turn to save others,” he agreed, holding open his arms for one last goodbye.  He boarded the ship and Trowa waited with me on the pier as tears scalded my eyes and my father sailed away.

And then, Trowa took me home.

Home.

It was pretty amazing that one word could have so many different meanings.  As many as there are people on the Earth.

I’d once asked Father Maxwell how a Scot had ended up in the French countryside.  “Providence,” he’d told me with a contented smile.

Providence.

If some curious soul were to ever ask me how I’d found myself in the African jungle, spending early mornings appeasing a leopard with ear rubs, teaching letters and math to neighboring village children by day, and curling up in a fragrant, grassy nest with my lover by night, well, now I knew exactly what I was going to say.

 

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic would not have happened in the first place without the encouragement and inspiration from my good friends, Annoyingly Little Twit, Amberly, and Clara Barton. Thank you, my dears!!
> 
> Also, yes, it is totally OK for you to leave a comment for me on this fic. In fact, I hope you do! (^_^)


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